xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>I hope it's clear that what I am trying to do here is to articulate how
>Christoph's inquiry might be formulated in a dynamical theory of
>remembering that makes memory not so different in its nature from
>activity
>itself. And at the same time to shift the key distinction a bit, away
>from
>matters of volition, toward a sense of what volition itself is, and how
>it
>arises in activity.
...well, as i am writing currently about events in Africa from 30 years
ago, i am in a position of
deliberately re-calling experience into a present context of composition:
sometimes i write in the present tense, as though the events are immediate
(and in memory, of course, all remembering has a dynamic of immediacy),
other times, i revert to past tense description, to intone the quality of
re-collection, a "then" to complement the "now" of composition -
these are willful acts: memory in this case is purposefully appealed.
after i've written some pages, i stop to allow my willful work to tease at
the connections in memory,
- other experiences emerge, and then i return to write from those. in
other words, the purposeful remembering of past experience triggers
spontaneous relations and connections of similar experiences in the same
context of an African experience.
i'd venture memory is spontaneous in the unexamined life, perhaps; ? but
some of us draw on memory relentlessly for inspiration and insights.
or have i missed your point?
diane
"I want you to put the crayon back in my brain."
Homer Simpson
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
vancouver, bc
mailing address: 46 broadview avenue, montreal, qc, H9R 3Z2
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