Graveyards of Mind

Words lie inert on the pages of a book. Process of reading breathes life into them – and the inanimate squiggle of ink on paper wakes up with vigour. Sensibilities and idiosyncrasies of a reader endow the same book with various lives in the minds of different readers. I am often astounded to discover that books which moved me to peaks of ecstasy or depths of gloom, have fallen off the conscience of other readers like water off a duck’s back.

Way of looking at the world is shaped by our nature. No two natures are alike. Hence, a book cannot evoke mirror worlds in different minds.

Reading a book is an experience like all else in life. Except that it is intensely personal, often involves heightened emotions and feelings, and changes the reader a little, although, only occasionally, and perhaps transiently.

Philosophers and physicists do not accord time a prime role in a material world, but the world unfolds in our consciousness on a melody set by time.

We experience life in its infinite variations as moments pass us by in an unending procession. Past has been lived and the future is yet to come. Thus, the present is the only tangible element of time, relentlessly impinging on our senses. Past and future are intangible constructions of mind.

Present is fleeting. We know it only by the footprints it leaves behind as our past. Future is a mirage, an image conjured by mind. It is an irony of human existence that the real aspect of time as experienced by us is transient, while the one that endures is virtual.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman coined the terms, Experiencing Self and Remembering Self, for this dual life we lead: The real yet fleeting life of experiences, and a long but virtual life constructed out of our memories. Although, experiencing-self is the one that interacts with the world every moment, it is the remembering-self that decides how we interpret these experiences and what we remember of them. Remembering-self knits the yarn that we call our life-stories. Kahneman calls this the tyranny of the remembering-self – ‘The experiencing self does not have a voice. The remembering self is sometimes wrong, but it is the one that keeps score and governs what we learn from living, and it is the one that makes decisions.’

A small, 3-3.5 cm³-sized collection of neurons, Hippocampus, is Kahneman’s tyrant in our brains. It is richly connected with all major centres of brain: centre for consciousness, emotions, cognition, and sensory areas. Memories are created and recalled here. Here is manufactured the image that we call life. Image formed is not a real picture but is written in the language of our brain – new synapses formed or subtle changes effected in the cellular architecture. Analogy with a computer is not far-fetched, rather quite accurate – image stored on the hard disk of a computer is a meaningless squiggle of 0s and 1s.

Our life – every moment we endured, every person that interested us, our triumphs, our failures, unrequited loves, sated passions, all that we can recollect and that which makes us what we are – is written in this tiny collection of brain-cells, shaped like a sea horse, in the language of neurons.

Richard Dawkins, in his latest book, The Genetic Book of the Dead, writes that the body and genome of living organisms ‘can be read as a comprehensive dossier on a succession of colourful worlds long vanished, worlds that surrounded [their] ancestors long gone: a genetic book of the dead.’

It intrigues me to consider that my memory too is such a book. Scribbled on it is my entire life gone by, in a language that only my brain can read.

Memory is thus a palimpsest on which our experiences are written. Dictionary defines palimpsest as a ‘manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing.’ Unlike a palimpsest, recent memories do not necessarily overwrite the earlier ones. With time the script fades. But certain events, experiences, or faces, embedded in memory a long way back, occasionally, shine with newly acquired brilliance in later years. At times,  the newer writing seems to alter the meaning of the older ones. Kahneman’s tyrant, the Remembering Self, ordains that this palimpsest, occupying a tiny area in my brain, must be read to interpret every passing moment.

A compulsive reader destined by my nature; I perpetually live with many worlds in my mind. Not infrequently it is the world spun by the book I happen to be reading, that feels real and the real an irksome ersatz.

World of books and the variety of their subjects, their themes, their stories are endless. Even the most impassioned reader tastes only a few drops from this ocean in his lifetime. Over a long time, a consistent reader, unconsciously, gravitates to the books that dovetail with his personality. Thus, the personal library of a reader subtly hints at the proclivities of his mind, the distinct tint of the glasses he wears as he looks at the world – both, internal and external. Books on the shelves of a bibliophile reveal his personality.

Thousands of books I read over the years, spawned numerous worlds in my mind – throbbing with new stories, keen emotions, novel thoughts, narratives of exotic travels, histories I had no clue about, or staggering knowledge of life and universe beyond my imagination. I lived with these discoveries, these new-born worlds for days or weeks, as I read the book.

Most of the worlds the books created in the past have perished, over-written by the ones born of new readings. These are the books that I have forgotten so thoroughly that I cannot even remember having read them in the past. Like a deleted file on a computer, I cannot retrieve them from the hard-disk of my memory, where they have been abandoned like junk data.

It is fascinating to imagine that there could be a memory-geek, perhaps an oracle, who could read the language of neurons, and resurrect these lost worlds for me. It would reveal a city of dead – gravestones of books, now forgotten, buried in their neuronal grave. These books would weave an enticing story and revive my past. I would inhabit this world again and understand what I was – certainly not what I am today – those many decades ago. I would see how I developed, nurtured, and consolidated whims of my nature that are an ineluctable part of me today.

There are books, possibly in hundreds, that infrequently visit me and enliven my thoughts. Their reminiscences are only vague. A sentence, a turn of phrase, a beautiful word, or an idea invokes a whiff of familiarity. I rush to the book-rack and retrieve the book, often after a tedious search – the name of the author and the title of the book frequently escape me – and sate my curiosity. These are the books that hover on the brink of oblivion.

But A mist trails me always; vivid images of books that are perpetually open on the page I want to read. I effortlessly summon them to mind and indulge in the worlds they evoke. Among these are some I read decades back. Their scripts in memory, stubbornly refuse to be overwritten by new impressions. My emotions, my feelings are perpetually under the spell of these books. Their continuous presence informs, colours, and animates my inner world.

Such is the vibrant, ever-changing necropolis of my mind. New worlds erupt here incessantly even as the old ones are laid to rest. Contemplating this universe of virtual images is another joy of my readerly life.