Memories Ground Us

"We are our memories. We are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves." — J.C. McKeown

"Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us." — Oscar Wilde

"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things." — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Your memory is key to who you are, being able to recall your own life in your own terms through your own internal perception and voice is a wonderous ability that you (may) share with other creatures on this planet we all rely upon.

I have a small grasping at how memory works, how our brains 'store' the information we can often recall, or why it can be fallible at times of need, but I do know that some things can transport us all back, sometimes at the most inappropriate times.

"I am a collection of thoughts and memories and likes and dislikes." — Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin

"The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves..." — C.G. Jung

"Without memory, there is no culture..." — Elie Wiesel

It's true as you get older the recall gets harder and harder. I am a fan of using 'memory crutches' , this blog is one such, as are the one or two (190,535) photos I take. I have to be careful that I don't only use those though as they can become the memory and crowd out everything else (#5).

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December." — James M. Barrie

"Memory is the mother of all wisdom." — Aeschylus

"Memory is the key not to the past, but to the future." — Corrie Ten Boom

Seeing the photos takes me back, hearing music from the past takes me back, but a smell oh my lordy lord, a smell (often a perfume or food) has an instant and direct recall to memories. It's probably why I love the glorious smell of a good book*, even magazines, anything printed really.

Smells trigger vivid memories because the olfactory system is directly linked to the brain's emotional and memory centers—the amygdala and hippocampus. Unlike other senses, scent signals bypass the thalamus (the brain's relay station) and go directly to these areas. This unique, fast-tracked "hardwiring" links scents with intense, often childhood, emotions.

Cool eh!

If you ever want to remember something then associate a smell with it at the time and then just have a sniff later to go flying back to that time and place. Of course you'll have to remember what specific smell you used :)

PS: Memory is also the name of a colleague at work, cool eh

• No, the image is not for a real thing -  https://smellofbooks.com. Check the other products from DuroSports Electronics that are equally as wonderful

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