Moments, Memories, Meaning
I recently ran my first workshop as a member of Liminal! It was about telling the story of one’s journey in science, for students in the Effective Science Communication course at Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. In preparation for this workshop, Liz and I had a conversation about story elicitation—how do we discover what stories we want to tell in the first place? All our experiences are valid, and many of them are important, but which of our experiences are story-worthy?
According to common wisdom, stories need to have beginnings, middles, and ends, and tend to follow particular arcs. And while this common wisdom isn’t untrue, it’s more about what a crafted, polished story looks like and less about what the beginnings of a story might be. Trees have trunks and leaves and branches, but if we looked for those same elements as we looked for the seeds that grow into trees, we’d be out of luck. So how do we recognize the beginnings of a story?
A sprouting seed. Photo by Ludwig Kwan
Recently, while in conversation with neuroscientist Daphna Shohamy (who studies learning and memory!), Liz formulated a three-point approach to story elicitation that really resonated with me: she suggested that when we’re looking for stories, we focus on how moments become memories and how memories are imbued with meaning. And so the process of discovering your story begins with finding the really powerful memories. Thinking back on your journey in science, for example, what are the memories that come up? Maybe you remember the very first time you stepped into a science classroom, or a particularly memorable school field trip, or a science TV show you became slightly obsessed with as a kid, and couldn’t stop talking about. Two hallmarks of a powerful memory can help us cue in further—strong emotions and specific details. What did the biology lab smell like on the day when you dissected a sheep’s heart and realized you’d never seen anything quite as weird as a mitral valve, those few flaps of skin that our lives depend on? Do you remember the exact words that Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park that made your jaw drop? If you think back to them, do you feel that same jaw-dropping sensation now? If you do, then maybe there’s a story there.*
These moments of our lives that we remember so viscerally weren’t just any old moments. Rather, they became vivid memories because they turned out to have meaning for us. We wouldn’t remember the biology lab smell or Jeff Goldblum’s words if, later on, we hadn’t built some part of our lives upon those moments in some way. Maybe we moved in the direction suggested by that crucial moment, or maybe we ignored it and came to be haunted by our ignoring. Maybe you became a cardiothoracic surgeon, or maybe you nursed a years-long crush on Jeff Goldblum that led you to a career in filmmaking. The moment turned out to have stakes, in other words. It’s our job as storytellers to find the memories, trace the moments at the heart of those memories, and then reckon with their stakes.
What I love the most about the moments-memories-meaning framework for finding one’s story is that the story you discover within yourself, the story that’s raring to go, can change with time. What we remember might change with time, and what holds meaning in our lives can change too. Some students in the workshop I was leading seemed a little surprised at themselves when they realized that, every time they’re asked about their science story, they say something different. Others were surprised that, no matter the context, they find themselves telling the same story over and over again. There’s no right or wrong here, of course—the lesson is simply that, by paying close attention to the stories we tell about ourselves, we can uncover what matters to us right now.
*Forgive me if this Jeff Goldblum scenario makes no sense; I remember very little of Jurassic Park!
