Stuff I Shouldn't Be Thinking About

Blog 1 - Memory

For most of us the past is a haven. Safe, and reassured by the notion that eventually, everything turned out okay. As if it were an unforgiving paradox, time allows us to infinitely feel the present precisely until it transforms into moments passed. And then, these moments, unhinged by our most strenuous attempts, transcend into memory. A labyrinth of happiness, heartbreak, joy, passion, love and misery – memory is permanent, free of the trials of tomorrow. For me, memory encompasses a 24-year long movie, of which a substantial amount only exists in fragments, while the rest could be found in photo albums or Instagram pages alike.

Perhaps the most vital role memory plays in our lives is its ability to trigger emotion. To feel again what you felt before. To be comforted by the past in the face of the future. To feel love lost, people lost, places lost. Memories are the building blocks of who you are today, or atleast the person you think you should be. Memories are a pathway to comfort when we're low. So what happens if under the facade of living in the moment, your friends didn't take any pictures? What happens if the building blocks of your personality are rudely taken away by the efforts of an omniscient force that you have no control over? Well, you forget. That's what happens.

So what's the point of living in the moment if there's a chance you won't remember it? In the twilight of your life, in the midst of love, success, fun and accomplishment – what happens if you forget? Moments that defined you, moments you want to keep forever, all tossed into an abyss from which they may never recover. Memory is kind, but also cruel.

There's really no solution to the paradox of memory. I've found that despite my hardest attempts, it's impossible to re-live a Coldplay concert or a graduation ceremony. In time these memories will become faded, until it reaches a point where the only thing I do remember is that at a particular point in my life, I went to a Coldplay concert and graduated. To put it bluntly, it sucks.