Do I really want to remember this?

Refreshing my memory tag for 21 March 2012 this morning, I found myself thinking, "Do I really want to remember this?"

The image pinned to my mental calendar is sitting in a café waiting for the exhaust to be adjusted on our car - it had been replaced a couple of weeks before and was knocking. I had just had a hair cut while I waited, haircuts being one of the things that I choose to remember, which has cured me of my habit of leaving it two weeks too long before thinking it is time for another.

But really. For the rest of my life do I really need to remember that I had a haircut on 21 March 2012?

Then I thought, why not? These are the things that make up life. The big things are easy to remember, but we spend most of our hours on the small things. Are those days when nothing more significant that a haircut occurred to pass into oblivion?

I am staying at a hotel at the moment. In India. A significant memory, perhaps. But thinking idly of the snack on room service last night, my thoughts strayed to staying in another hotel in my wife's country and all the receipts I had signed waiting for me when I checked out. I remember the moment and the hotel, but I'm not really sure of the occasion - was it a wedding anniversary? - the date, or even the year.

So yes, I do want to remember.

Cholesterol changes

I thought I'd have a blood test to see if there had been any change to my cholesterol levels since I began following the intermitant fasting regime on 30 August 2012.

This involves having two days per week with intake of below 600 calories. It hasn't been much of a problem sticking to this.

I have always exercised well and eaten pretty healthily and my cholesterol levels were just about within range when I last had them checked in 2008.

The key figures are overall cholesterol and HDL cholesterol. The latter is not a different type of cholesterol but a measurement of the cholesterol surrounded by High Density Lipoproteins. This is known as 'good' cholesterol because it causes less damage and even repairs artery walls, unlike the globules of cholesterol surrounded by Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL).

Both HDL and LDL cholesterol is needed. It is the way cholesterol is transported to the cells where it is deposited to make the cells waterproof. As cholesterol is a fat it is not water soluble. And that is why it needs to be surrounded by lipoproteins to be transported through the blood instead of clumping together.

So here are my figures:

Total cholesterol 154 mg/dl (2008: 152 mg/dl - Ideal <200 mg/dl)

HDL cholesterol 46 mg/dl (2008: 40 mg/dl - Ideal >40 mg/dl Protective >60 mg/dl)

LDL cholesterol 96 mg/dl (2008: 98 mg/dl - Ideal <100 mg/dl)

So not a great deal of change over the course of 3 months, comparing these two data points from different laboratories.

If I am aiming to increase HDL cholesterol then I'm heading in the right direction. Over 60 mg/dl is meant to correlate to reduced risk of heart disease.

However, I'm not getting too excited as it naturally occurred to me that these differences may well be within experimental error.

Indeed, I turned up this research paper which suggests readings are subject to error of ± 20%, so the same person can vary in consecutive measurements between at risk and low risk groups, even when following the guidance of 12 hours fasting before the measurements. See:
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=652985

Which means it is impossible to really conclude anything from these tests, though I probably have no reason to worry about my cholesterol lessons and may or may not be moving them in a healthier direction.

Power of five

This is obvious, but it only came to me this week.

My review process is to recall a three-day window finishing on the current day of the week for each week from when I began this process.

So today being Sunday, I've whizzed through the memory tags pinned to my mental calendar for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I say the date to myself as I do so to associate this with the image.

I've just realised the obvious: adding five to the date of Sunday, gives me the date of the following Friday (except when it comes to the next month, of course).

I've been doing things much more cumbersomely since I began this method.

Boundaries

I have a clear memory of laying in bed as a child, touring through the memories of the day and feeling connected to each person who figured.

With a sudden shock I realised that somehow I was separate from them. Though I could remember their words and actions, I could not sense their thought. My consciousness was contained within my own being. There were boundaries, where I ended and they each began.

It may have been that same night, it may have been another, when I thought the memories of my day - my life itself - was like a dream. Perhaps I could wake up (this was long before the film The Matrix had even been conceived, let alonge watched by my young self). The thought seemed immediately erroneous, because if I woke as some strange creature dreaming of being human, that creature too could surely wake. The life I was living, I concluded, was reality.

I don't know how old I was. No more than a few years, I believe.

This came to mind as I have introduced a new aspect to the review of the images pinned to my mental calendar that enable to me recall every day of the past 11 months since I began this process. I am now trying to recall not my view of the day, but that of my wife's. What she was doing, how she was feeling, how our life - and I myself - might appear to her.

It gave me that sensation from long ago in reverse, breaking down the boundaries of consciousness, of where I end and she begins.

It is giving me a fascinating fresh perspective on each day and our relationship.

It also makes me very grateful that the effort put into this process gives me this opportunity.

This time for love

I mentioned a while ago about using speed reading techniques to run through the images pinned to my mental calendar to keep down the time my reviews take.

But sometimes I feel a slower review is called for. The period I have been doing this covers the entire time my wife and I rented a flat in my country, which was one of the happiest times of my life.

So a couple of days ago while doing my usual morning review, I made a point of remembering my wife, what she was doing, how she was feeling, how we were getting on.

She doesn't figure in every memory tag, so for those days I might not remember anything specific.

But she figures in plenty.

Sometimes it is said people live on in the memories of those that love them.

This exercise brought home to me what that means.

In some ways it is beautiful to hold someone in your mind, but in others it is very frightening, because even remembering so much more than I used to, the memories are merely moments representing many hours.

I might add, I also realised my memories of someone reflect how I see them.

In the rush of life - and the rush of my review process - it is sometimes good to focus on the love.

How long does it take?

I run through the images pinned to my mental calendar pretty quickly these days.

I'm usually done in the time it takes me to wake up properly.

Recently (16 November) I did a day-by-day recall of the past nearly 11 months (I began this process on 17 December 2011) during my 30-minute morning run. It was plenty of time.

Eleven months

I now have over 11 months of memory tags, helping me to remember every day that passes.

In fact, as we left my wife's country on 19 November 2011 for my own, and had an eventful time when we arrived, I have added memory tags retrospectively for days before I began this process.

It is kind of nice to see where this is going. As time continues its relentless transit through the days, I will know exactly where I was and what I was doing on the same date the year before.

But I'm wondering how my current review method will bear up.

I'm not confident enough yet to let go of recalling three days per week from when I began this process on 17 December 2011 to a month before the present day, then every day for the past month. But it takes longer each time.

Hopefully some new method will emerge as the days overlap with a year ago.