A real story and not just a remembering

Christopher Robin and Pooh both had a problem when it came to making sense of their past.

‘I do remember,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘and then when I try to remember, I forget.’ 

Pooh, likewise, was a bear of very little brain, so everything needed to be said more than once.

‘I do remember,’ explained Christopher Robin, ‘only Pooh doesn’t very well, so that’s why he likes having it told to him again.  Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering.’

… a real story and not just a remembering.

Christopher Robin has really got me thinking on this one.  In fact, I am left somewhat perplexed about the difference between simply recollecting memories from our past, as opposed to turning these apparently disconnected, random fragments of time into ‘real stories’. 

What is Christopher Robin trying to get us to understand here?  Is this is a lesson in semantics or the subtle nuances of language?

Actually, I very much doubt it.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am left convinced by the thought that he just wants us to consider the possibility that remembering is never enough.  After all, as Christopher Robin himself acknowledges, the only thing that follows remembering is forgetting.

Talking of which…

Who of us could forget the devastating series of events in the Gulf of Mexico this year, spelling an unprecedented environmental catastrophe?  A spill 20 times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, who of us could ever forget the human, ecological - let alone financial - cost of the Deepwater Horizon disaster that so dominated our media channels, day after day, week after week, month after month?

The fact is, though, we did forget.  Didn’t we?

As soon as that cap showed signs of holding, we let the whole thing slip from our minds.

For Ray Cooper, Director of Strategic Communications at the Heritage Foundation, who went on a fact-finding mission at the height of the crisis, this process of forgetting is only realizing his worst fears at that time:

“What worries me is that once it stops, and once the live feed stops showing oil spilling, people will forget about the oil that is already in the water, and the long-term environmental and economic damage that it and the drilling moratorium are having on the Gulf States.”

 He was right to be worried.

The story of Deepwater Horizon is in danger of becoming a memory for us to forget.  But surely it’s our responsibility to keep repeating what happened, until every detail of its impact upon a fragile eco-system, every human cry from those families who lost loved ones or whose livelihoods have been destroyed, every hollow soundbite from the Fat Cats in their luxury pads, have been woven together into a ‘real story’ that will never allow itself to be forgotten – a compelling narrative that commands our attention, demands our action, and forces us to write a different kind of future for ourselves and our children.