Retconning.

"Retcon" is a term that some may know, and others may not.  It is a portmanteau of the phrase "retroactive continuity", and gained prominence in the world of comic books.  Essentially, it involved altering the back-story story of a given character.  For example, George Lucas retconned the original Star Wars to make Greedo shoot at Han first in the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine, thereby making Han’s originally cavalier act one of self defense, and altering his nature. (TRIPLE NERD SCORE!!)

This happens often in comics, soap operas (He was a robot the whole time!! Dun dun duuuuunnn), and movies, and is usually done to allow for different or enhanced storytelling.  It is usually a good thing, but not always (see the above case).  I think people retcon their own lives more often than they realize.

Because my best friends and I have known each other since high school, conversations return to that topic with some frequency.  Our assessment of our standing in high school society is that we were not really popular, but not really unpopular.  Our wives find this hard to believe (which I in turn find adorable), but I think our assessment is correct, mainly because it was not made in a vacuum.  We can give each other some outside perspective.  I’ve known a few people who have done the opposite and come to (from my perspective) surprising conclusions.

A very dear friend of mine once made an off-hand comment that high school was terrible for him.  I was stunned by this, because my outside assessment was that he was well-liked by most, popular with many, and simply had a deep interior life, thus choosing to not participate in a lot of social-type activities.  His view was totally the opposite.  It was one of inner tumult, outer scorn, and deep wells of sorrow.  To hear him relate in very few terms his memories of high school made me very sad for him because I could only imagine that much of this perception was driven by his inward view of himself.  Moreover, his view of his younger years motivated many of his present day actions.  My external view was that he retconned his life to make it fit who he was at the time. (side-note; he’s a very happy and well adjusted former teenager now, just like the rest of us).

My dear friend is not the only person I’ve known to do this.  In fact, I’d wager that many of us frequently retcon our lives, sometimes unknowingly.  It reminds me of a quote from George Orwell: “Who controls the past, controls the future.  Who controls the present, controls the past.”  Orwell was discussing revisionist histories being used to motivate control of a population in 1984.  If we apply this bit of Ingsoc to ourselves, it means that since we control our present and have plans for our future, we have the ability (and frequent desire) to make our past fit nicely into that present and those plans.  So why do we do it?

Perhaps it is to alleviate cognitive dissonance.  Maybe to help justify our actions.  Maybe it is to make ourselves feel better about our current station in life.  For whatever reason, we’ve all been there.  I would imagine that finding the motivating force behind your own personal retconning would be a momentous and enlightening achievement.  So…you know…get to it.
We all have pasts that are at once hazy and veiled by memory, yet as clear as a mountain stream.  They inform who we are, shape our present, and guide our future.  Some are more difficult to navigate than others, but they all have value and meaning.  Look through yours, and get to know yourself better.  If you play it right, you might discover that you are, in fact, a long lost princess from another world, sent as an envoy to the backwards human race.  (dun dun duuuuuunnn!!!)