How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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Fhe Function of Memory To discuss all these tools in detail lies beyond the scope of this study, but it will repay us to know something of memory and its relation to the training formula. The average man believes that memory is a vague hereditary faculty which is valuable to those who happen to possess it and a loss to those who have never developed it. Some scientists believe that memory can be trained in much the same way a muscle can be trained, and to some extent this is true. Yet none of these views helps us to under¬ stand the function of memory. Why is it that we remember trivial incidents of our childhood and forget major happenings of our adult lives ? Why is it that some people have a vivid and retentive memory of the earliest days of their childhood, and yet are incapable of remembering anything they learned at school ? Why is it that we sometimes forget the name of an intimate friend, or the address of an important business acquaint¬ ance, and yet recall the colour of a tie we wore on Easter Sunday five years ago ? These are the important facts about memory : the overwhelming majority of the myriad experiences that make up a lifetime are forgotten. IVhat we remember must, therefore, be very important for our training 'pattern. Psychological investigation indicates that our earliest childhood memories when properly interpreted are found to contain the complete key to our lives.. In my psychiatric practice I often ask a patient for his earliest childhood recollection, his most painful experiences of childhood, and his happiest childhood experiences. These three sets of recollections usually give me a picture of what the patient thought of himself and his childhood situation. The earliest childhood recollection epitomizes our first discovery of our own ego, and its relation to the environment at the time when we were first able to understand or feel that relationship. The most unpleasant recollections show how and where our pattern was thwarted, and therefore give a clear picture of the