BEAUTIFUL RECOLLECTIONS: FACES
We remember things differently. They are different from reality. And they are different from each other. We can never record things in our brains with the same accuracy as we can electronically, no matter how “photographic” our memories are. And we can’t organize our memories so well. We can’t retrieve them all at will. Some things slip and sink deep down into our neural filing systems and get lost. Others fade, softly, slowly.
Most of us have a problem with faces. We disconnect them from stories. It just happened to me a couple of days ago... I saw a woman, sitting a few rows in front of me, to the right, watching Djokovic trounce Reynolds on Centre Court at Wimbledon. The instant I saw her, I knew that I knew her, but for the entire match, I couldn’t figure out who she was or how I know her.
It doesn’t matter how well your mind works in other capacities, it’s relatively easy to forget a face.
Yesterday, a friend of mine hailed a taxi after standing in the heavy rain for 15 minutes without success. When one finally arrived, he jumped in, all wet and bedraggled, and began to tell the driver where he wanted to go, when the driver cut him off.
“I know you!” the driver exclaimed.
“I beg your pardon?” my friend replied.
“Do you work for (what sounded like) Cherry?” the driver asked.
“No.”
“Yes you do! I know you! I know you! You look exactly like someone I picked up a few months ago. I’m sure.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t recall.”
“You work for a cha-ri-ty!” the driver insisted, this time enunciating more clearly through his thick Cockney accent, and more loudly through the pounding rain.
“Well, yes, sort of.... How do I know you?”
There are over 25,000 taxis in London. And the black cabs are quite big and configured with glass dividers, so that the passengers are quite removed from the drivers, making it difficult for them to see and hear each other. The improbability of a driver and a passenger serendipitously meeting again and recognizing each other, coupled with our weak face-memory capacities, added to my friend’s inability to make the connection, despite the fact that this was important.
“You changed my life!” The driver shouted, with great exuberance.
“I’m sorry....????”
“And you changed the lives of so many people I care about! Don’t you remember me? I’m Gavin!”
My friend likes to surprise people by giving them chunks of money so they can realize their dreams. Sometimes they are people he knows. Sometimes they are total strangers. He always chats with his taxi drivers and often gets inspired by them. He asks about their lives. And they love sharing their recollections with him. They love that someone is interested in them, when most passengers, at most, chat with them about sports, traffic, or the weather.
Many of these drivers have overcome incredible challenges in their lives already, often escaping tragic or dire conditions in their countries of origin. They’ve come a long way but they still struggle. Getting to know the personal histories of the men and women who help get my friend from place to place every day, has brought meaning both to his life and theirs.
He’s paid for college tuition for a number of taxi drivers’ kids, helped with their medical bills, helped start new schools, helped bring relatives through immigration barriers, and more. He often does it anonymously, which is why I can’t share his name here. He often gives the gifts, as he did in this case, without expecting further contact. He doesn’t need to be acknowledged or thanked. He just needs to help make a difference. And he’s done this often, for many years now. So often, he doesn’t always immediately remember every face in every circumstance.
Four months ago, on their first ride together, Gavin had explained that a big part of his life struggle was due to his severe dyslexia. From early childhood, through his adulthood, it held him back and caused him social pain. He told my friend that he volunteers for charity, called Dyslexia Action, that helps children with dyslexia, who often suffer from low self-esteem issues and other challenges. And my friend was moved by the driver’s passion and activism. “What is your dream?” my friend asked Gavin.
Gavin’s dream was to be able to spend more time coaching and talking to dyslexic kids in schools. My friend later sent the charity a £10,000 check. When the charity called my friend to ask what they should do with the money, my friend told them to do whatever Gavin thought was best.
While he has been an exceptionally successful businessman, and has been known to remember the tiniest details, complex numbers, and other kinds of facts with uncanny precision, my friend’s memory required quite a bit of jogging for faces and names. Yet the driver, who is strongly challenged to read or do math, and whose verbal memory is compromised because of his dyslexia, needed only a brief second to recognize a face that he had only seen once before and only for about 15 minutes.
Video: Courtesy of The Anderson Shelter
Both men were excited that they had met again and were grateful that the driver remembered my friend’s face. The recollections of their first meeting brought them both great joy. Gavin told my friend about how the donation had made it possible to help so many more children. In fact, Gavin was so blown away by the unexpected generosity from a stranger, that he told everyone around him who would listen. The BBC caught wind of the story and featured Gavin in a film made for a special appeal for Dyslexia Action.
Check in with us for the rest of this week, as we will feature posts every day about recollections related to Arts/Design, Food/Drink, Mind/Body, Place/Time, and Nature/Science. And enter our photo competition this week. The theme: Recollections.
For more on how the brain works, check out our posts:
Beautiful Brains Connect Better
Beautiful Games make Beautiful Brains
