...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.
Interpretation
Our memories are influenced by our current experiences, making them unreliable.
This quote by Jamaica Kincaid suggests that our recollections of past events are not objective truths but are instead shaped by how we perceive our present circumstances. As our current emotions and understanding evolve, they color and alter our memories, reflecting the fluid nature of our relationship with the past.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about how our current feelings shape our view of past relationships.
Something settiled inside me, something heavy and hard. It stayed there, and i could not think of one thing to make it go away. I thought, So this must be living, this must be the beginning of the time people later refer to as 'years ago, when I was young'.
Gardeners (or just plain simple writers who write about the garden) always have something they like intensely and in particular, right at the moment you engage them in the reality of the borders they cultivate, the space in the garden they occupy at any moment, they like in particular this, or they like in particular that.
I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always writing-but in my head.
I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for the 'New Yorker,' I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people.
I didn't think of myself as an outsider because of my race because... where I grew up I was the same race as almost everyone else... It is true that I noticed things that no one else seemed to notice. And I think only people who are outsiders do this.
I come from a little island with the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I come from, really, nowhere, and for me, the fiction and the nonfiction, creative or otherwise, all come from the same place.
All kinds of excuses have been given by governments for not implementing this recommendation like food price inflation. But the question is, do the farmers of this country, who constitute nearly half of the working population, also not need to eat?
Dataism is a new ethical system that says, yes, humans were special and important because up until now they were the most sophisticated data processing system in the universe, but this is no longer the case.
There's no point of having faith if you have evidence.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
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