1.
As Humans, when we say “I,” we mean our Memory.
Therefore Memory is Soul. If somebody loses his Memory, he becomes like a
Plant, and he hasn’t got a Soul anymore. Even for a believer, Hell has no Meaning
without Memory. Punishment lies in constantly remembering the Sins committed. So we are
our own Memory. Moving ahead in Time, older Memories come back. I remember now Things
from my Childhood I didn’t recall before. The Realm of our Memory gets bigger
and bigger, therefore the older one gets, the more Soul he has. A grown up Man
has more Soul than an Infant.
2.
Memory is selective. We cancel or forget Things
we did not like, and we keep the Memory of Things we liked, but in a distorted
Way. This is what NeuroSciences confirm. There’s a static Way to consider the
Past, which is typical of reactionary Groups. They repossess what is suitable
for them. Revolutionary Groups, instead, try to erase Memory. “Forget
everything that was before. Let’s start from Scratch.”
3.
Shared Memories mean common Identity. We can’t
think of ourselves as Europeans if we are not able to restore an european
Identity. There’s a parallel to individual Memory, which is the Library, the
vegetal Memory. Libraries are Mankind’s common Memory. So you see, common
Memory and Reading are connected, and so are Books through their Preservation.
Since Alexandria of Egypt, the Idea of a Library, of a Museum is the Continuity
of Memory. A Library is both Symbol and Reality of common Memory. When Dante sees God in Paradise, how does he tackle the
uneasy Job to describe God? This way: “A single Volume where lies everything
that is scattered through the Universe...” He sees God as the Library of all
Libraries.
4.
The Problem concerning Memory that I feel most
urgently today was foretold in the [19]50’s by Isaac Asimov[]. He imagined a
Society completely run by Computers, where, during a War, a Blackout stopped
everything. So military Intelligence started looking for the only Man who still
knew Multiplicationtables by Heart. [] And this Man was captured by the
Pentagon, because he was the only one who could keep the War running and defeat
the Enemies. It was a prophetic Tale. People less and less do Mathematics in
their Head, because they’re used to pushing a Button. This will end up causing
Memory to atrophy in younger Generations. You see it all the Time. My
Colleagues tell me that after thirty minutes, their Students don’t remember
anything they said unless they took Notes.
5.
Semantic Memory is what we know about the World
while incidental Memory is what we learn from personal Experience. There were
cases where people kept their semantic Memory, but they lost their incidental
Memory. They remembered who Napoleon was but had no Recollection of their own
Mother. I don’t know why and how this happens. It depends on some Aspect of the
Brainstructure. Hence the Idea of my Book: recovering one’s personal Memory, by
Means of Pieces of public Memory. “La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana” was
kind of antiProust, rediscovering the Past through external Objects, not
through internal Memories.
6.
We are made of Time, we live in Time, through we
don’t have a real Definition of Time. And living in Time, we are like athlete:
to spring forward, he must back up first. If he does not take a Runningstart,
he can’t jump ahead. It’s the three Ecstasies of Temporality according to Heidegger:
Past, Present, Future. Which is what St. Augustin said, too. Without Memory, there is no Soul, and to imagine the Future,
we need a Soul.
7.
“We are like Dwarfs on the Shoulders of
Giants...” It’s a memorable Piece of Writing ascribed to Newton, who actually
quoted it, but in fact it’s much older. It goes back to the Middle Ages,
probably back to Bernard of Chartres. It’s meaningful that it comes from the
Middle Ages, an Era considered illdisposed toward Innovations, because
everybody had to be faithful to Revelation. But in time, many Innovations were
enacted, only they had to pretend otherwise. And so we have this delightfully
hypocritical Statement: for Giants are much more important to us, but sitting
on their Shoulders, we can look farther than them, id est, we admiringly
respect all that went past, but we can add something our own to it.
8.
Fathers die when they
stop telling us what they know, and begin asking us something new. I remember my Father spending Nights reading my
Dissertation. [Accurate.] It was full of Quotations in Latin, which he did not
speak; [Accurate.] it was about Thomas of Aquinas’s Philosophy, which he did
not grasp, [Accurate.] but he read it till the End. He had stopped telling me
his own Stories, and he was willing to hear something from me.
9.
Lists and Catalogues always fascinated me. Has a
list anything to do with Memory? Yes. It’s a way to gather whatever is known
about something without being forced to organise it. The first list is to be
found in Homer’s Iliad. The Poet does not know how to describe the Greatness
and the Power of the greek Fleet, and so he enumerates the Ships.
10.
Getting old, if you’re not ill with Dementia or
Alzheimer, Memory grows. It’s not true that with age you remember less. If you
are in good Health, you remember more. Today I remember Things from my
Childhood that I didn’t before. Our Memory’s Realm grows. Memories from our
Childhood which had been totally remouved surface. One strange Thing that’s
happening to me is this. As a Kid, I never spoke Dialect. My Parents talked to
me in Italian, but since everybody around me spoke Dialect, I understood it,
though I was never able to speak it. Now I speak it perfectly. Sound of wind.
It came up like this. And in this way do so many other things of my Youth. The
day I die, I’ll remember everything.
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