P.S. A Column On Things

By PAUL E. SCHINDLER JR. I am from Portland, Oregon, Beaumont ’66, Benson High ’70, MIT ’74. Some things are impossible to know, but it is impossible to know these things.

What Is Reality?

August 9, 2026

It is a well-known phenomenon that, if you tell a story often enough, you remember the story better than the actual event. Related is the common occurrence that you think you remember something cute you did as a child, but eventually come to realize that what you remember is being told (over and over) about the cute thing. In my case, the adult version is the day in 1971 when my friend Kenneth Pogran drew Arpanet. You know, like Bob Ross. Could Ken have explained packets to me? And routing around damage? That’s the way I recall it. But when you tell a story often enough (I have been dining out on this story for a half century), the story begins to substitute for the actual memory.

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Paul E. Schindler Jr.

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