Hypothesis of the limitation of memory(Japan Newton Press, Brain and Neuron, 2018): Participants who had extraordinary performance in episodic memory showed less than average ability in the opposite side, such as autobiographic memory, vice versa. Once one memory builds a specific neural network for long-term memory, the person seems to forget another memory/another neural connection becomes weaken.

q. If I develope diverse abilities simultaneously and constantly, fostering language, music, art, tech, science skill, and even memorizing numbers, the limit of brain’s capability matches the precedent study?

Maybe many genius people in history like Da Vinci could expand their brain’s capacity by mastering various disciplines with both artistic free spirit and intellectual curiosity.

Hypothesis of recalling memory(Japan Newton Press, Brain and Neuron, 2018): There are triggers linked to memories in hippocampus. When one of them got stimulated and transferred to the cerebral cortex, the returning signal from cerebral cortex to hippocampus activates hippocampus and memory can be recalled.

q. What if each entity of neuron stores entire memory, and hippocampus is only a control/transition centre? We sometimes conceive that the human brain has similar capacity, capability, volume, and efficiency to the digital memory storage, which we can see and measure. Memory in both ways doesn‘t have actual form, non-material, but the mechanism of how to code and decode seems different. What if human memory transcends our assumption, and life-long memory can be accumulated in any substances, such as a nucleus or a Nissl, or even without substance?

q. We believed that electrochemical signal in neuronal communication contains the information. If we create a detour and extract the signal, can we see what information it really has?

q. Does a mental stimulation like imagination or dream show the same aspect as a physical stimulation in the brain? Then, can the neural signal initially be generated inside the brain without perceptional input?

q. Though tens of thousands of year-long-memory could be embedded in a single DNA cell, should some decade-long-memory of one person be  devided into every different part in brain for efficiency?

A process called long-term potentation and the influence of a class of substances called calpains, calcium-dependent proteases. Boudry and his team say that calcium is needed to stimulate the protein in our brains that allows our synapses to undergo memory-related changes that can last. When a connection between neurons is repeatedly or strongly activated, like an association between memories, calpains are activated at that exact location. It seems only when calpain come for a visit that we see the transformation from simple experience to lasting memory.

– Dr. Julia Shaw, The Memory Illusion, p. 60

I am hiding behind a cloud

Sentimental morning
Tears dropping
Like raining

Don’t look
Darkness will come
Murky clouds at home
My eyes hollowed
Yours followed

Bye sad today

You are not here
though your voice I hear
You ain’t here
though your warmth I wear

The words, I’m okay
Empty words you say

You know I hate you
but I still love you

Cold blue moon tells me
there’s no tomorrow
tomorrow ain’t yours

Deep sleep has broken
when the sun has awakened
singing
today is a yesterday of tomorrow
it is a yesterday like tomorrow

행복할 때 만드는 얼굴 근육의 텐션이 있다. 웃는 얼굴은 스스로 보지 않아도 당시의 감정과 선험적 근육 인지를 통해 자신이 웃고 있음을 알 수 있다. 하지만 때로 감정을 배제하고 스마트폰, 책, 혹은 모니터 등을 마주하고 있는 순간 나의 미간이 얼마나 굴곡져 있는지 깨닫지 못할 때가 있다. 우연히 카메라 어플을 실행하거나, 꺼진 화면을 통해, 곁에 놓인 거울을 통해 이를 확인한 경험이 있다. 직후, 얼굴의 표정을 부드럽게 고치곤 한다. 이렇듯 거울을 사용하는 인간은 자신의 추함을 들여다보고 깨닫고 이를 고치는 계기를 마련한다.

셀피 역시 거울과 같이 스스로를 비추는 역할을 한다. 셀피와 거울을 통해 현대 사람들은 현재 자신의 모습을 어떻게 하면 더 멋지게 보일 수 있는지 고민한다. 그리스 신화의 나르시수스와 같이 자주 자신의 모습을 확인하며 좀 전보다 나은 자신을 기대한다. 2시간 만에 바뀌는 머리카락이든, 1시간 만에 바뀌는 눈매와 콧날이든, 30분 만에 맑아보이는 피부든, 3분 만에 날렵해지는 턱선이든, 빠른 시간 안에 달라지는 나를 기대하고 투자한다.

그런데 사실 아름다움은 자신 그대로의 모습에 있다. 마음에서 우러나오는 미소는 거울을 보며 나오는 것이 아니라 마음가짐에서 비롯된다.

To love someone is
not being able to give
but dying to give.

누군가를 사랑한다는 것은
줄 수 있는 넉넉함이 아니라
줄 수 밖에 없는 절실함이다.

Korean TV series ‘Reply 1988’ (2015)

Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

생각지도 못한 누군가가 누구도 생각지 못한 일을 한다.

– Alan Turing
Cinema ‘The Imitation Game’ (2014)

보기에 아름다워 아름답다하는 것만이 아니다
모진 세상 풍파를 견디며 몽우리 만개할 때까지 온 힘을 쏟아낸
그 삶이 아름다워 아름답다하는 것이다