I had this same crisis. I sold my car and went to costa rica. Then worked on a weed farm. Anything to escape. I didn’t have a phone or bank account, or id. It was very difficult to get back on the grid. I remember all of it. Wildfires, the yoga community I cooked for. Traveling, becoming a worker at a climbing gym. I don’t remember high school. I remember my first cubicle job and how by month 3 my mind worked like an inmates. I was simply planning my escape. Only listened to podcasts that help me plan my escape. Got in shape as I knew manual labor would be required to make ends meet. 7 years later. I work from home in a cubicle of my own creation. Thought it would Be different this time.
Memory changes and you lose, but you can ground yourself in reality and things outside yourself that do not change with your thoughts but to their own stimuli. In principle, at least.
i did enjoy severance very much. and i sympathize with the idea that the work version of you and the "real" you can often exist in opposition to one another. the worst part is that it often doesn't take a brain wiping procedure for this to happen.
i think that my way of coping with this dynamic is to try as hard as possible to distance myself from the version of me that exists in corporate america, to negate this identity. when you do this, forgetting is so natural, because it feels like all my work memories aren't even mine to keep.
i like how you described the "sorting mechanism" as the selection process for how memories get stored and discarded in our minds. what i'm most curious about is what parameters are used in this sorting, and what it might reveal about our internal value systems, narratives, desires, fears etc.
that's interesting. it sort of poses the question: by recalling a memory are you passively visualizing your past self undergoing a feeling or is it that your present self is reliving the feeling entirely? probably a combination of both?
soul sister
I had this same crisis. I sold my car and went to costa rica. Then worked on a weed farm. Anything to escape. I didn’t have a phone or bank account, or id. It was very difficult to get back on the grid. I remember all of it. Wildfires, the yoga community I cooked for. Traveling, becoming a worker at a climbing gym. I don’t remember high school. I remember my first cubicle job and how by month 3 my mind worked like an inmates. I was simply planning my escape. Only listened to podcasts that help me plan my escape. Got in shape as I knew manual labor would be required to make ends meet. 7 years later. I work from home in a cubicle of my own creation. Thought it would Be different this time.
Memory changes and you lose, but you can ground yourself in reality and things outside yourself that do not change with your thoughts but to their own stimuli. In principle, at least.
This is exactly how I felt about high school. I can't remember anything. Also, I think you'd really like the tv series Severance.
i did enjoy severance very much. and i sympathize with the idea that the work version of you and the "real" you can often exist in opposition to one another. the worst part is that it often doesn't take a brain wiping procedure for this to happen.
i think that my way of coping with this dynamic is to try as hard as possible to distance myself from the version of me that exists in corporate america, to negate this identity. when you do this, forgetting is so natural, because it feels like all my work memories aren't even mine to keep.
thank you for the comment!
i like how you described the "sorting mechanism" as the selection process for how memories get stored and discarded in our minds. what i'm most curious about is what parameters are used in this sorting, and what it might reveal about our internal value systems, narratives, desires, fears etc.
that's interesting. it sort of poses the question: by recalling a memory are you passively visualizing your past self undergoing a feeling or is it that your present self is reliving the feeling entirely? probably a combination of both?