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March 29, 2024, 08:10:43 pm

Author Topic: 'One's memories shape their understanding of themselves, their world and others'  (Read 690 times)  Share 

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Callum@1373

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For Context Whose Reality? Text studied: Robert Drewe's memoir 'The Shark Net'

As a backbone of an individual’s history, memories are a key to gaining an understanding of the fundamental elements of life. Where the different interpretations of reality can severely harness a society to have an objective understanding, memory provides a safety catch, a backdrop that we can refer to when gaining an understanding of life.

One cannot disagree with the concept that some memories in our mind have that unambiguous way of ‘standing out’, in other words, are very accessible and unforgettable. On the wayside, some memories take much prompting to come to mind, however it is much noticed that they tend to reveal something about us that help us determine who we truly are. Take for example that moment when a friend shows a very embarrassing photo of you, doing something ridiculous that you probably regret now. When thinking back to that occasion, does it reveal something about you? I myself can remember at grade 6 camp, we had a red-faces night, where I performed my own little magic show. If it wasn’t for my dad’s persuasion, I probably would have chickened out and not done it. But I did, and I managed to astonish my audience, my fellow peers, and did something that I would never think I had the guts to do. I can still remember being called ‘Conjuring Callum’ for my efforts that night, and the memory of standing up there sticks out in my mind like a sore thumb. It shows me every day how proud I am, my ability to go above and beyond what’s expected of me, giving me the power to always believe in myself. This sort of ability to understand one’s self is rampant in society. It is not always a positive thing in my example; sometimes a memory may reveal something negative about one’s self. But always, we can gain an added understanding of who we are by reflecting upon our memories.

This is not always true however, of a method of understanding all elements of life. To gain greater insight into another individual’s reality we have to not rely on our own memory, but experience that of another’s. The famous quote from numerous authors ‘step into my shoes to fully understand me’ holds true in various situations in life. In Robert Drewe’s memoir ‘The Shark Net’, Drewe appears to not view multiple-murderer Eric Cooke as the ‘night crawler’ he is stereotyped, but instead a more humane, emotional being. Striking similarities can be drawn from the memoir in Drewe and Cooke’s character. The manner in which Drewe aims to impress Roberta by demonstrating his ability to kill a carpet shark reflects the eagerness of the youth, but shows a similarity with his insight into Eric Cooke’s internal life where being called ‘bird mouth’ and other negative words caused him to feel the need to ‘show’ the people around him his swimming ability. This form of understanding of another’s emotions Drewe possesses may be his ability to wink at Cooke, even notice the time of his hanging while his family was oblivious to it, as he has a deeper understanding of Cooke’s mindset than those around him. It is for this reason we are always told to step into another person’s shoes before we make hasty judgements about them, as we may pick up on details that a superficial overview would have otherwise missed. As irritating as it may seem to show compassion for one who is so widely disguised, understanding the inside of one another lays in the foundation of gaining insight into their reality.

Ultimately, to understand our world we must not rely on our own, a group of people or a whole nation but step out of our world and see the bigger, holistic reality of it. Plato defined the virtues upon we live many centuries ago to what he believed where at the epitome of a functional earth, part of which was peace. However, one has to look no further than the embattled Syria to see the consequences of conflict. The hundreds of properties and lives ruined will affect the sanity of their society and nor does the conflict ever seem like it is going to end. Thus, it appears that the beauty of our universe, the fact that the human race has developed is not considered in these torn apart, war in progress countries. On the bright side, there have been over 500 humans travel into space, and in regards to the virtues of our society all of the astronauts commented on one concept, the Overview Effect. To quote one astronaut, David Williams, ‘For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.’ It is seen through this how close the human race is together in comparison to the size of our ever-expanding universe, and it seems unnecessary that morality is disregarded through these ongoing wars. In order for one to see our world with a holistic lens, we must not rely on one individual’s reality, but the whole world in one snapshot, to put everything into context.

One’s understanding of their world can be heavily tailored to our own memory. It forms a surface that we can constantly refer back to. However, memory is just as dangerous as it is beneficial to us. We must, in order to gain an understanding of those around us and the entire concept of society, look beyond our own memories and interpretations, and transcend beliefs that are imprinted on a group of individuals by one person’s reality.
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