Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
My Failures Are What I Remember
What’s the deal? How come I remember my failures with more clarity than I remember my victories. That’s not fair. Am I neurotic?
Example Number One: Marie and I were living in Salt Lake City with our beloved cat Scamper. I was walking home from the University of Utah when I discovered Scamper lying dead in the gutter. She was a pretty calico cat, and she had been run over by a car and pretty much squashed. So I scooped up Scamper’s remains and gave them a small burial by the side of the road, saying a few words over the grave. My wife and I loved that cat.
When I got home, I told my wife Marie what had happened to Scamper. My wife is an emotional sort and cried and cried, and we both slept fitfully that night, thinking of poor Scamper being hit by a car and lying dead and alone in the gutter.
The next morning, we opened the door and there was Scamper mewing on the porch. I had buried someone else’s cat. That was over 50 years ago. It’s lived in my mind ever since.
Example Number Two: I was semi-retired when the local PBS radio station advertised for a jazz DJ. I and a few other hopefuls showed up. After a few tryouts, I got the job. I had an advantage: The manager of the radio station had once been my student in a graduate seminar.
I was going to be in show biz! And it was a payin’ gig. (That’s the way we show biz types talk.). Before I started, I came to the radio station to practice, off air, for a few weeks before my gig started. Man, I was a natural.
Then it came time for me to do my show. The ON AIR light came on and my throat constricted. Actually closed up on me. I could hardly get a word out. What came out sounded like “Ack, ack, ack.” I was supposed to be a smooth-talking jazz DJ and all I could say was “Ack.” I was terribly embarrassed. That was fifty years ago.
I finally got some words out and cued up my first song. I remember what it was: Ella Fitzgerald’s “Take the ‘A’ Train.”
I went on to become a reasonably competent late-night DJ. I tried to project a sort of cool jazz persona, with a low and confident vibe in my voice. I was nothing to write home about (the guy I replaced was much better), but I did all right after that dreadful beginning. I even had some fans, though one guy called in and told me that I was trying too hard to be cool. He was right. I was never any good at being cool.
Example Number Three: In 1959 I was in Germany, away from home for the first time. One day, feeling a little homesick, I came up with the idea of preparing an audio tape of my voice, telling my mom and dad what was going on with my Army life. I even taped a few of my Army buddies speaking into the tape. So I sent it off. Later, my sister said that she, my parents, and my aunt and uncle had gathered around the tape machine to listen to my thoughts. All went well. Until my voice ended. I had forgotten to turn off the tape while I was recording
I don’t know if you know it, but Army guys, back in the day, lapsed into a kind of Army speak after they’ve been in for awhile. Army speak is language that uses the “fork” word as an adjective in most utterances. Thus, “That forken sergeant forks up every time he forken talks.” Or “Please pass the forken sausage.” Or “I think I’ll go for a forken walk.”
As my folks had finished my part in the tape, a string of “awful language” (my sister’s words) blistered the living room with ”forks” and worse. After we had thought the tape had ended, me and my Army buddies, sitting around the barracks, lapsed into Army speak. My sister rushed to turn off the tape, but she didn’t know the controls well, so the obscenities continued for a bit. It probably didn’t bother my dad. He worked as a roughneck on oil rigs. But I know that my aunt and my mom (who worked hard to elevate my dad and me from our Oklahoma roots) must have been appalled. My mom never mentioned the episode. I’m glad she didn’t. I cringe when I think of that group suddenly listening to Army speak, my voice included. Her son, my mom must have thought, had devolved to the family’s crude Okie ways.
So I’ve got all these little failures buzzing around in my mind. I don’t particularly care for them being there, but there they are. The first one isn’t so bad. I’ve told the cat story a number of times for the laughs. The second two I’ve largely kept secret until now. You guys exist in the ether and can’t show your condescension with a facial expression. I don’t think emojis with their tongues stuck out really do the job.
Hemingway once wrote that courage is grace under pressure. I’m game for almost anything, but I sometimes leave my grace behind.
I’ve had some victories in my life, but it’s the failures that I remember most vividly. What about you? Have you forgotten your failures? You have had embarrassing failures, haven’t you?
Published in General
Marci, I really would like to hear of a major failure. You can trust Ricochet. You probably know better than I do that that it’s full of people who are kind and supportive.
The list of things I should have done differently or failed to do at all is legion. All I can do at this point is try not to screw up today and tomorrow. :-)
Dude, you were in mourning.
I doubt that there is a time that self-recrimination and reliving shame are ever welcome, but sometimes I think I could drown in it.
It sounds like many people on this thread are being way too hard on themselves. :(
As someone who has never made a mistake, I had some difficulty identifying with this post. But after some reflection, Kent, I want to let you know the humor and humility that characterize your contributions here will never lead to a check in the “fail” column. Thanks.
Those who know and love us forgive our mistakes, and we forgive theirs. Why not forgive ourselves?
I don’t see any failure in your actions at all. Misidentifying the cat was an error, not a failure.
I was watching a video my husband had recorded for his folks while he was a Marine in Desert Storm. Oh, the language. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe he had stopped noticing at that point, it was such a habit.
Sometimes “Golly Gee Whiz” is just not enough.
I can’t speak for @KentForrester, but it is not how I took his question. Everyone has something in his past which, in retrospect, could have been done differently or gone another way. Perhaps that is the basis for some to regret things they did or how they did them. I stopped jumping over stretched chains – see #20, but I did jump over fences with scars to show that on at least one occasion it was not a wise decision…
I took the posed question in less philosophical but more clinical way. Why some of our memories are more vivid than the others. Is the feeling of regret, shame, failure, or embarrassment the only trigger for clear recollection. Anecdotally, speaking of myself, I got clear memories of places and times triggered by smells or the way the light was shining at me from the sky. These memories did have emotional components which were not necessarily negative.
Granted, when I think back, more of my clear memories may have been about my shortfalls, a plurality but NOT an overwhelming majority. Perhaps it has something to do with how our brains match stored patterns and the hierarchy of these patterns. Is our brain a hard drive with unlimited storage with all our past experiences neatly stored for ever, or is the storage limited and some patterns (files) hang in there with all the details for some unknown reasons.
Interesting question: How come I remember some things, e.g., my failures, with more clarity than I remember some other things, e.g., my victories?
Edit: Added missing but intended NOT in the text.
It has been a (informal) process, but freeing the conscience of embarrassing moments and failures changed everything. I don’t want this to sound in any way a sob story, but the thing that dominated my life prior to the last seven years or so was guilt. It was a learned thing passed down from a parent who also learned it from a parent. It was the primary way this parent used to control behavior. That’s what we do, we take the things we learn and pass them on.
So it shouldn’t be any surprise that failures and disappointments magnified to the point, eventually, of near mental paralysis. The truth was that moment began a transition from living my life according to others’ expectations to setting my own, and fulfilling them. I had moments of guilt from childhood that haunted me and were vivid 25 years later. The list of memories grew to accentuate the central message of the guilt: that I was a bad person. The memories were always close, always ready to take a swipe at happiness…being happy led to more guilt, of course, because why would I deserve that?
I’m not suggesting anyone here is that invested in memories of failure or embarrassment, just pointing out that these memories serve no one, least of all ourselves. It’s almost a cliche, but most of those embarrassing memories we carry around, other people forgot long ago. Now, 90% of the time I’ve forgotten (and forgiven) them too. Freedom is sweet.
So how did you forget?
Chris, yours is an excellent response. Thanks. I’ve never experienced much guilt myself. I don’t think I have much of a conscience. As you probably noticed, the memories I described in my post were largely embarrassing moments.
Neither of my parents had a single bone of religion in them. So it’s enlightening when I read thoughts like yours. I get the same feeling when I read the Bible. Those ancient Jews really had feelings of guilt. Why otherwise would they need a God (of both Testaments) to forgive their sins and then cleanse them of those sins?
At the end of your response, I was left wondering how you broke free from those debilitating memories. Was there a single epiphany? Or a slow disengagement?
At any rate, thanks for your response.
Read my book…just kidding. It started simply by examining my experience. What prevented me from pursuing what I wanted? The thing is, it is easier to see what holds others back. It is not a difficult thing to see it in your own life, but it requires taking the time to do it. So I took the time, and learned to forgive myself for things I did not know, or, at least, were obscured by things I was taught. The forgiveness causes the memories to fade.
Much of what I “learned” boiled down to emotional responses of a child who couldn’t have the tools to sort through such things, and so coped the best way he could. It’s not always easy to pinpoint the moment of learning and adopting behavior that ultimately becomes self-defeating, but, boy, is it worth the time. That is the most simple answer I can give.
You just don’t think about it because it’s the way you’ve always been, but just because that’s so doesn’t mean it has to continue.
Ruth, thanks for your thoughtful response. You’ve started me thinking. (I guess I should have done more of that before I wrote my post, which is largely a list.). Sometimes, it seems, a memory sticks because, well, who knows why. I have a memory of finding a rubber toy knife in a chicken coop on my grandparents’ farm in Oklahoma. I was, oh, about three or four. It’s probably my first clear memory. I have no idea why that one, over all others, stuck. Others are more understandable: in the back seat in a car with a girl at the drive-in movie when I was abut 16. Talk about memorable. Ostracism can often produce a painful memory. I remember a time when I was shouldered aside and ignored while others, in a small group, were having a big time.
I’ll have to think about this further.
Several epiphanies and the process goes on, but the big things were the most glaring and the first covered. You find, after a while, that some of those things persist and that is because there were additional experiences that reinforced the initial response. Some things are surprisingly quick to fade, others require more digging. I have a “eureka!” moment at least once a week.
I suppose when you put a big heading that says “guilt” on a page and start a list, well, it’s not much different if any of us started a list of things that raise a bit of anger. So, yeah, slow disengagement with epiphanies that just make you feel great. These moments make you feel like Jello because of the loss of tension.
God help you Brother, but if those are your worst you are a saint. Occasionally some benign stimulus will send an arrow to the guilt lobe of my brain and I’ll say “fork,” or “Good dam hit” out loud (if no one is around, that is). I’m not going to tell you any of mine.
That made me laugh!
LOL! So did I! I can still squirm in embarrassment at events long past. I’m still convinced that other people don’t do the dorky things I do (although apparently a good many also voted for Carter).
Oh, dear Kent the Gent! I only wish my “failures” had been as well-intentioned, as self-limited, as the ones you recount!
But
–why do we remember ’em better? I read that we form a much stronger memory if an emotion is coupled with physical pain or discomfort. Like, I don’t remember everything that happened to me when I was 9, but I do remember breaking my leg. When I think of the awful or embarrassing things I’ve done, I actually re-experience that hot, skin-crawling sensation over my whole body
You’re giving ‘pride goeth before the fall’ a nice visual…….ouch!
I’ve had too many embarrassing moments to even begin to list here….and almost had another – woman almost dials 911 choking on oatmeal after descending into a hysterial laughing fit reading Kent Forrester’s blooper story….
Jose, I can understand that. There are one or two incidents in my life that make me cringe with embarrassment. Oddly enough, they’re not mean things I have done to others. They’re just embarrassing things. Like yours, they’re too embarrassing for me to write about. I like to keep things light on Ricochet. Light but as truthful as I can be. I’m a bit too open, according to my dear wife Marie.
Come on, Suspira, just one really “dorky” thing. You’re among friends.
Hypat, you know things. I think you once mentioned that as a young girl, you were one-half smarty-pants, one-half sass. You did mention that, didn’t you?
The episodes I have trouble telling others about have to do with my stage fright. Those are embarrassing. I want to be cool. But stage fright, like my miserable acting career and my initial DJ fright I described in this post, are not cool at all. They sound like a seven-year-old afraid to talk in front of class.
I was even tight as a tick on the first day of class. It was a time to connect with a class, but I was always too tight to do that. My miserable little jokes always fell flat, too, because of that stage fright. After that first day, I was all right.
I wasn’t always like that. Oddly enough, in some very stressful situations, I was cool. My Ph.D. Orals, presentations before academic associations, paper readings—in these situations, I was cool. I don’t know why. It was almost a random thing.
Odd, isn’t it, that a person who spoke in front of an audience every day for 30 years would feel stage fright?
Although I feel almost alone in my stage fright, probably because it’s been so intense at times, I’ve read it’s very common. In fact, I think I read once that people fear public speaking more than they feel death.
What a wonderful thing for you to say, Ms. Cat. Some of my best memories are times when my class and I became hysterical with laughter.
On the other hand, a student once asked me, with a disapproving tone in his voice, “Aren’t you ever serious?”
No home is complete without a calico cat.
Or a tortie.