fickle memory

My short term memory was good once. When I was a waiter I had to keep a lot of trivial things in my head. It’s the job. 6 steaks, 20 drinks, 3 desserts spread out between 8 tables. Maybe that’s the only activity my short term memory was ever good for. I don’t know. I don’t remember. My long term memory is mostly confined to the reconstruction of all that I did and do to myself.

I haven’t wanted to write something like this in a while. Used to be I felt my efforts were best invested in fiction. I don’t understand myself as well when I’m direct about it. I bowed out of therapy after 5 years because I felt like a greatest hits album. I wouldn’t call it shame. After decades of excess I’m frugal now. If all I’m gonna play are the same 12 songs anymore, why pay her? I knew what she was going to say almost as well as she did. She relived this particular anxiety with me, only without the investment of ego, or the fragility of whatever perceived trauma there was. She could see a clear direction out.

Here it is. Only a suggestion.

Yeah, I’m going to do that. Some day.

Every addict knows the way out. That bit is clear. Change is hard. I learn things about myself in fiction, I think because I’m only invested in- I don’t want to call it truth. It’s not completely accurate and it’s heavy. It’s archetypes. Writers can plan all they want, but if they want their characters to be believable, to be real, they have to respect the collective unconscious. The way out is clear, at some point, for every character. So far, for me at least, they all break away from what I am as a person, what I want or what I’m capable of. They have to be their own thing, to be real. I have to let go of them, for their sake and my own.

When I do that, a character starts to make decisions on their own, usually about 15,000 words into something. My characters are not me, can’t be. That kind of art makes me angry sometimes. Kevin Smith’s movies can set me off. Those aren’t characters. That’s just him putting his needs in different mouths. I got no problem with needs. We all have em. And maybe this site is as bad as Clerks for fantasizing the self, but to me there’s no real contrast to Kevin’s characters, just superficial differences. My characters are their own people, most often something I can’t be. I guess that’s the difference between me and Kevin (other than him getting paid for his work) is I don’t think those characters are indications of personal growth. They’re that obvious thing the addict knows, only the characters do it.

Lay off Kevin, will ya?

Yeah yeah. I stand by it, but you’re right, a part of it is envy.

This was a lot of hullabaloo to get to the point. My memory isn’t Biden bad, but it’s fading. I can tell every morning is as good as it will ever be, and every evening it’s a little bit less. What will happen when I can’t remember all the things that shaped me? What if I haven’t figured enough out by then? I want to be a happy-go-lucky guy with dementia, not one shaking his fist at the world. At some point I’m not going to remember even some of my hit singles. So, the idea this time around is a record-

Ha.

I see it. At least I didn’t say album. It’s a database then, for me, and I might manage to make it interesting to others. To be honest, that last bit isn’t so important at the moment. I’m trying to do this like I let me characters define themselves. I’m a Jungian, if you can be an amateur one of those.

I don’t think that’s a thing.

Eh. You’re probably right.