Anagha Sainath Week #13: Embrace the Scavenger Hunt
Through my time in AP Psychology this year, I’ve learned a lot about memories—explicit versus implicit, the process of creating false memories, and the ever-so-controversial Freudian concept of repression. Although I once believed that my utter lack of childhood memories stemmed from repression, it only took a few lessons on the heavily scientifically discredited phenomenon for me to learn that this was almost certainly not the case. In the relative span of my life as of right now, I can’t say anything particularly traumatic enough to cause repression has happened to me. Sure, I’ve experienced the occasional school drama or minor medical scares, but certainly nothing of the magnitude and manner that repression requires.
Childhood memories come to me in the form of recognition rather than recall, meaning that I need a stimulus to prompt my memory rather than conjuring it up from nowhere. Every time I see the cement sidewalk at the front of my community, I’ll remember the time my friends and I stepped in the fresh, wet concrete, the pungent smell hitting our noses as we dug our heels further into the sludge, desperate to leave our mark. The smell of chlorine takes me back to my weekly swim lessons; when I hear Ariana Grande’s song “breathin” I am suddenly 10 again, jumping into the shockingly cool community pool to mark the start of summer break.
This has led me to a new hypothesis, also inspired by AP Psychology. After extensive lessons, worksheets, and videos on the topic of memory, I have reached the conclusion that childhood memories are simply not meant to follow my idealistic filing cabinet analogy. Your childhood is your childhood for a reason. It is a time of summers that seem to stretch on for years but also slip by in the blink of an eye, for grass-stained pants with holes at the knees, and playing outside until the street lights turn on. Part of the joy of nostalgia comes from sudden bursts, like finally figuring out a clue to a scavenger hunt—not pulling a file out from a meticulously organized cabinet.
Ultimately, I believe in continuing to make memories. I know it seems like childhood is over for us, but it hasn't ended just yet. In the midst of all the stress we feel right now, I urge you to go out and make core memories that become the best scavenger hunt clues ever later down the line. I’d like to end my blog with perhaps my favorite phrase to come out of the modern day linguistic culture. #YOLO.
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Hey Anagha! Reading your blog has made me quite interested in taking AP Psychology because I found what you said so interesting. Talking to my friends who can easily recall memories, I thought that I was just not thinking hard enough or was not conscious enough about my surroundings, which is why I could not do the same. However, reading your blog and doing further research, I realized that I access my memories through recognition, just like you. Though sometimes I need to think hard to remember childhood memories that I thought I had lost over the years. I can recall memories using not only images but sounds and feelings. For instance, in long car rides, when it is nighttime and I hear a specific song, I am taken back to fifth grade when I was listening to the same song and coming back home from a particularly difficult math contest exam. I also love the analogy you made about memories not being organized but scattered. I often feel the same way and I feel inspired by your final paragraph about living life in the moment and enjoying this time.
ReplyDeleteHi Anagha!
ReplyDeleteI was immediately caught by your title. I vividly remember when I would go to Tule Pond and do scavenger hunts through the nature center. It seems like just a blink of an eye ago that I was eating Otter Pops under the awning as a reward for completing the hunt.
While the days of me going to the playground and making friends with another child I'll never meet again are likely over, walking by the old playground I used to play at always brings a sense of warmth to my heart. For me, it's the "old" songs that always played on the radio, specifically 96.5. I hadn’t realized it until recently, but some of those songs are absolute bangers.
Once again, in the blink of an eye, I'm already a junior, rapidly approaching my senior year, while I could swear my first day of high school started just two weeks ago. I hope to enjoy the last rays of childhood as the sun sets over the ever-looming horizon of college.
Hi Anagha! I think your blog is really interesting and I definitely learned a lot through reading it! I also took AP Psychology, so I remember some of the concepts you talked about. I think my memories are also like yours, in that they are triggered by recognition. This is because I don’t usually remember things until something prompts me to. I also think this is why I have such a hard time remembering details, since unless something triggers the memory, it’s dormant.
ReplyDeleteI also found your theory that childhood memories are stored strangely since our perception of time was warped. I think this also stretches on to current memories. Some times, when nothing’s really happening and life is peaceful, the days blur together, and whole chunks of time feel like they only took a few days. On the other hand, when life is eventful, time seems slower, and when I remember that period, it feels really long.