Sleep-dep memology

[gfish]

What would you tattoo on yourself, Memento style? I.e., what facts, goals, warnings, guidelines, etc are most fundamental to your sense of self? Assume basic biographic information (boring!) is a given, and limit yourself to an amount that could be easily read in a mirror.

Comments

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I have in fact been tempted to tattoo "If you continue to do as you've always done, you'll continue to get what you've always gotten" on my arms.

[ionan.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that's a good one.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Not sure this exactly counts, but as a reward for losing weight I'm going to be getting symbols tattooed on myself which are specific reminders of who I am and who I want to be and how I want to live my life. They won't be readable by most other people because they're out of a fantasy culture created by my beloved ... but I will know.

I haven't quite decided yet which concepts to have etched on my skin, but so far I'm leaning toward "dance", "joy" and "love". And there will undoubtedly be more later, such as "healing" and "connection".

[hsifyppah.livejournal.com]

An abiding policy of skepticism underpins my sense of self, but it's hard to think how to communicate that to myself through tattoos. If I was successful, I would be suspicious as to the source of the tattoos and the motivation or mitigating influences on myself or the other agency responsible.

But maybe "believing in strange ideas does not guarantee that strange ideas will believe in you."

I think I would be tempted just to let my life take some strange new path instead of trying to guide myself back to my current, happy life, which would never be quite the same anyway after a catastrophic memory loss.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Deliberately lying to yourself is, of course, within the bounds of the thought experiment...

[hsifyppah.livejournal.com]

The starting coordinates for a geocaching treasure hunt might be fun. Get to the final cache and find a kinder-surprise egg with a plastic toy and a note saying "Yes, this is actually all you get for wiping your memory and covering yourself in tattoos. Nanner nanner!"

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

The only tattoo I've ever talked about getting was some version of this:



Maybe with a caption in esperonto, saying something like, "if found, please return to here."

[neuro42.livejournal.com]

"Warranty void if seal is broken".

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I suppose the lyrics to "Girl That's Never Been" would be pretentious and self-indulgent. :)

Aside from the one I've already got... something about singing. When in doubt, sing. When nobody notices you, sing. When you aren't sure who you are, sing. When you aren't sure whether you're beautiful, sing.

[ivy]

I already have "face death in order to recognize life" on my back. It's the only thing I've liked enough to feel like I'll still want it when I'm 80.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

There's a famous bellydancer who has a beatuiful tattoo across her midsection. Someone asked her what it meant and I was something about how nothing is achieved without heard work, and she got it to remind her to keep practicing daily.

I'd do something similar.

[callmem.livejournal.com]

I've got 'dream', I need 'act'. I was thinking 'be kinder than you think you need to be', 'there is no such thing as time off' and things like that, but what I would really like in the Memento situation is something more like the video tape from 50 First Dates, with music and pictures to give emotional context, ending in some kind of pep talk/todo list for that day.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Actually, not having a tattoo is fundamental to my sense of self. So I'd have to have a tattoo reading "Never get a tattoo."

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Probably a ruler.
Plus name and blood type.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I don't think I would. Which is odd because I'm kind of thinking about some brands...

I have a couple of tats. I'm happy to have them. But I increasingly don't particularly believe in continuity of the self, and I don't know if there's any gift to my future self better than just trusting her to work things out her way, for herself.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Not a tattoo, but... I have this idea that the ultimate test of a computational theory of the structure of human memory would be to instantiate it as a PDA interface and give it to someone who has lost their long-term memory. The only problem is, you'd have to convince them (and get them to remember!) that the PDA is their memory.

[np-radical.livejournal.com]

"Don't eat snow peas, you're allergic to them."

I _always_ forget about that.

Personally, I'd rather represent ideas and reminders as images so that they're really only meaningful to myself. It's like writing something in a language that only you understand.

I think that the idea is to disguise as many skeletons as possible...