Sometimes I become strangely reminiscent. The past becomes a little brighter and I find that my heart aches a little bit. Certain fragmented memories return to my mind. It’s times like these that it becomes frighteningly clear to me just how much we forget. And in a sense, it also becomes frighteningly clear just how much of our lives is lost to us.
If you really think about it, you probably forget at least 80% of what you did during any ordinary week. Just think about last Thursday. What were you doing at 3:00 pm? Maybe you actually remember, or you remember because of a schedule or something like that. But then, what about a month ago? Or even a year? A year ago from today, what were you doing at 3:00 pm? For me nothing comes to mind. I can’t even imagine what I was doing. Maybe eating, maybe watching something. If I don’t remember does that day even exist? If I don’t remember does that day even matter?
Despite our usual forgetfulness, one thing I think is incredible is just how much we can recall certain days. I think everyone has at least one day they remember with almost perfect clarity. That one day where you can picture exactly what you did, and who you did it with. You can maybe even remember what clothes you were wearing, or the sounds that you heard that day. Some days are more important than others I guess, at least in terms of memory. And when I look back at my past, I find that it is built up of a string of these important days and moments. Not all of the moments I remember are happy, although I think a majority of them are. I think what all these moments share is that they were all associated with strong emotions. In each moment I remember, I can viscerally recall how I felt.
But memory is not so simple. It’s hard to say what I remember. Certain things I can’t remember until something triggers the memory. When I try to think of the past in general, my memory comes up fragmented and chaotic. All I see are flashes of random events, some of which even I’m surprised that I remember. Those memories feel like bubbles in a hot spring, reaching the surface of my mind then disappearing, leaving behind just a small ripple in my consciousness. What’s the difference between those solid, strong memories that are so clear, and these fragmented recollections of miscellaneous moments?
Honestly, I’m not sure, but I think they’re all important. A person’s memories are their soul, at least in a physical way. I guess that’s why Alzheimer’s is such a scary disease. As you lose your memories, you begin to lose yourself. But I guess Alzheimer’s also shows that certain memories are more important than others. Some things are forgotten sooner, and in the end, only the truly precious moments remain.
It makes me wonder, what are my life’s most precious moments? I think I’ll have a better answer for that when I’m older. Since I was born in this technological generation, I’ll have the privilege of seeing the pictures and videos of my youth as an old man. I can’t even imagine the nostalgia I’ll feel when I’m 70 looking back at my 20 year old self. Will I be more happy or more sad? Will I feel like I wasted my life, or that everything had worked out all right? Will I even be alive? Hahaha.
Who would I even be without memory? Is there a core to every human that is their purest self? A core that is only revealed when all memory is gone? They say that the ocean has no memory. It’s something that I think about whenever I go near the sea. As I watch the waves wash away the foot prints, sea shells, and markings in the sand, I can’t help but believe that the ocean is trying to erase memories. When I listen to the waves, my mind relaxes and becomes clearer. All life came from the ocean so perhaps we still remember it as home. Perhaps there’s a deeper connection with the sea that we as humans can feel but can’t quite describe. Or maybe it’s just something about how vast it is. How many memories have been washed away by the waves? If the sea could remember, how many stories could it tell?
These are all things I wonder when I listen to the waves crashing against the shore. It’s a sound that is prominent at first, but then becomes a constant when near the ocean. It slowly fades from the consciousness and becomes expected, maybe even necessary. The consistent, gentle rhythm of the water, which you don’t notice until it’s gone.
That’s the thing with rhythm though. If something is consistent our bodies quickly adjust, and then forget about it. If anything becomes too rhythmic, it becomes forgettable. That’s why I find drum beats so fascinating. A drum’s job is to keep rhythm, but a good drum beat is rhythmic without being consistent. There’s an identifiable rhythm, but you can’t predict where the beat will go. Will the drummer hit the snare or the kick next? Most of the time, our minds can’t find the exact pattern to a good beat. Thus the beat sounds fresh and unpredictable while also giving us something to nod our heads to. That’s amazing isn’t it?
Anyway, I recently watched a movie called After the Storm. It’s a Japanese film that tells the candid story of a struggling writer’s relationship with his slightly estranged family. I used to think I loved watching romance stories because I was lacking romance myself. But now that I think about it, I think I just enjoy seeing human relationships play out. In romance, there are usually more interactions to see, so I was drawn to watching romances. However, in After the Storm, watching the main character try to reconnect with his family was such an engaging story that depicted such raw and complex human relationships that even though the movie was not romantic in any way, I still enjoyed it greatly.
In Japanese, they have this word: sayonara. When translated literally it means “goodbye”, but in Japanese it carries a subtle undertone, meaning “goodbye forever”. It’s something you say to someone who you might never see again. That realization hit me hard, because when you say goodbye, you usually mean “goodbye until we meet again!”. Usually goodbyes are just temporary, but having a word like sayonara shows an understanding of the impermanence of the world. It really is a special word.
I really don’t like saying goodbye. Despite that, I feel like there’s been a few times in my life where “sayonara” would have been the right word. Human lives cross in strange ways. Some people stay tangled together for longer, but eventually all connections unravel. Either from the string breaking, naturally becoming untangled, or even just becoming loose. The time when “sayonara” would have been the most applicable in my life would have been my high school graduation. I remember explicitly thinking that I probably wouldn’t see many of my peers ever again. School had been the connection that kept us together, and after that link was gone, our lives naturally drifted apart. It’s a little bittersweet but I don’t feel too sad about it. As I move forward in my life, I meet other people I can get tangled up with. It’s all give and take. I just wish I knew the word “sayonara” back then. It succinctly expresses all those emotions that are hard to describe when untangling yourself from someone.
I think if anything, “sayonara” makes you think about the impermanence of life—that everything has an ending, including human relationships. That there will be a day when we will have to say “sayonara” to everything important to us. There’s a great quote by Paul Bowles:
“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
-Paul Bowles
Even reading this, life still seems limitless. My future feels like it has unlimited potential, but it really doesn’t. Maybe it’s because my future is as hazy as my past is clear. I can look to my past and see how I made it to the present, but I can’t look at the present and see where I’ll be in the future. Because of this, my present can lead to any future; nothing is too ridiculous. And although I often reminisce and think about the past—wondering if the decisions I made were the right ones—I can’t do that for the future. All I can do is face it head on. And although the future feels like it’s there, the true future doesn’t exist. It can’t exist because once we reach the future, it becomes the present. And once we reach the present, it just as quickly becomes the past. The past is really all that we have huh? The future isn’t real and the present is fleeting. These memories of what used to be is maybe all that I am. And each day as I forget more and more, I slowly lose pieces of myself.
But it’s not all bad, each day I gain memories as well. In a sense, as my life progresses, I collect only the memories that are the most important to me. A person can’t remember everything after all. So it doesn’t bother me that I don’t remember what happened last Thursday. Who cares. I remember other things that are more important to me. The ocean may not have a memory, but I do. As long as I remember the feeling of the ocean breeze, the sound of crashing waves, and the sight of the sun dropping below the horizon, the ocean can forget. Life is fleeting and our unreliable memories are proof of that. And although every human will eventually be forgotten, just like their memories, that doesn't mean their lives were meaningless. Rather, being able to forget something implies it's meaning. And just as life implies death, death also implies life. The fact that our lives are ephemeral makes each life unique and bittersweet, part of the memory of the universe. And in that sense, we'll never be forgotten.
Sometimes I become strangely reminiscent. The past becomes a little brighter and I find that my heart aches a little bit. Certain fragmented memories return to my mind. It’s times like these that it becomes frighteningly clear to me just how much we forget. And in a sense, it also becomes frighteningly clear just how much of our lives is lost to us.
If you really think about it, you probably forget at least 80% of what you did during any ordinary week. Just think about last Thursday. What were you doing at 3:00 pm? Maybe you actually remember, or you remember because of a schedule or something like that. But then, what about a month ago? Or even a year? A year ago from today, what were you doing at 3:00 pm? For me nothing comes to mind. I can’t even imagine what I was doing. Maybe eating, maybe watching something. If I don’t remember does that day even exist? If I don’t remember does that day even matter?
Despite our usual forgetfulness, one thing I think is incredible is just how much we can recall certain days. I think everyone has at least one day they remember with almost perfect clarity. That one day where you can picture exactly what you did, and who you did it with. You can maybe even remember what clothes you were wearing, or the sounds that you heard that day. Some days are more important than others I guess, at least in terms of memory. And when I look back at my past, I find that it is built up of a string of these important days and moments. Not all of the moments I remember are happy, although I think a majority of them are. I think what all these moments share is that they were all associated with strong emotions. In each moment I remember, I can viscerally recall how I felt.
But memory is not so simple. It’s hard to say what I remember. Certain things I can’t remember until something triggers the memory. When I try to think of the past in general, my memory comes up fragmented and chaotic. All I see are flashes of random events, some of which even I’m surprised that I remember. Those memories feel like bubbles in a hot spring, reaching the surface of my mind then disappearing, leaving behind just a small ripple in my consciousness. What’s the difference between those solid, strong memories that are so clear, and these fragmented recollections of miscellaneous moments?
Honestly, I’m not sure, but I think they’re all important. A person’s memories are their soul, at least in a physical way. I guess that’s why Alzheimer’s is such a scary disease. As you lose your memories, you begin to lose yourself. But I guess Alzheimer’s also shows that certain memories are more important than others. Some things are forgotten sooner, and in the end, only the truly precious moments remain.
It makes me wonder, what are my life’s most precious moments? I think I’ll have a better answer for that when I’m older. Since I was born in this technological generation, I’ll have the privilege of seeing the pictures and videos of my youth as an old man. I can’t even imagine the nostalgia I’ll feel when I’m 70 looking back at my 20 year old self. Will I be more happy or more sad? Will I feel like I wasted my life, or that everything had worked out all right? Will I even be alive? Hahaha.
Who would I even be without memory? Is there a core to every human that is their purest self? A core that is only revealed when all memory is gone? They say that the ocean has no memory. It’s something that I think about whenever I go near the sea. As I watch the waves wash away the foot prints, sea shells, and markings in the sand, I can’t help but believe that the ocean is trying to erase memories. When I listen to the waves, my mind relaxes and becomes clearer. All life came from the ocean so perhaps we still remember it as home. Perhaps there’s a deeper connection with the sea that we as humans can feel but can’t quite describe. Or maybe it’s just something about how vast it is. How many memories have been washed away by the waves? If the sea could remember, how many stories could it tell?
These are all things I wonder when I listen to the waves crashing against the shore. It’s a sound that is prominent at first, but then becomes a constant when near the ocean. It slowly fades from the consciousness and becomes expected, maybe even necessary. The consistent, gentle rhythm of the water, which you don’t notice until it’s gone.
That’s the thing with rhythm though. If something is consistent our bodies quickly adjust, and then forget about it. If anything becomes too rhythmic, it becomes forgettable. That’s why I find drum beats so fascinating. A drum’s job is to keep rhythm, but a good drum beat is rhythmic without being consistent. There’s an identifiable rhythm, but you can’t predict where the beat will go. Will the drummer hit the snare or the kick next? Most of the time, our minds can’t find the exact pattern to a good beat. Thus the beat sounds fresh and unpredictable while also giving us something to nod our heads to. That’s amazing isn’t it?
Anyway, I recently watched a movie called After the Storm. It’s a Japanese film that tells the candid story of a struggling writer’s relationship with his slightly estranged family. I used to think I loved watching romance stories because I was lacking romance myself. But now that I think about it, I think I just enjoy seeing human relationships play out. In romance, there are usually more interactions to see, so I was drawn to watching romances. However, in After the Storm, watching the main character try to reconnect with his family was such an engaging story that depicted such raw and complex human relationships that even though the movie was not romantic in any way, I still enjoyed it greatly.
In Japanese, they have this word: sayonara. When translated literally it means “goodbye”, but in Japanese it carries a subtle undertone, meaning “goodbye forever”. It’s something you say to someone who you might never see again. That realization hit me hard, because when you say goodbye, you usually mean “goodbye until we meet again!”. Usually goodbyes are just temporary, but having a word like sayonara shows an understanding of the impermanence of the world. It really is a special word.
I really don’t like saying goodbye. Despite that, I feel like there’s been a few times in my life where “sayonara” would have been the right word. Human lives cross in strange ways. Some people stay tangled together for longer, but eventually all connections unravel. Either from the string breaking, naturally becoming untangled, or even just becoming loose. The time when “sayonara” would have been the most applicable in my life would have been my high school graduation. I remember explicitly thinking that I probably wouldn’t see many of my peers ever again. School had been the connection that kept us together, and after that link was gone, our lives naturally drifted apart. It’s a little bittersweet but I don’t feel too sad about it. As I move forward in my life, I meet other people I can get tangled up with. It’s all give and take. I just wish I knew the word “sayonara” back then. It succinctly expresses all those emotions that are hard to describe when untangling yourself from someone.
I think if anything, “sayonara” makes you think about the impermanence of life—that everything has an ending, including human relationships. That there will be a day when we will have to say “sayonara” to everything important to us. There’s a great quote by Paul Bowles:
“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”
-Paul Bowles
Even reading this, life still seems limitless. My future feels like it has unlimited potential, but it really doesn’t. Maybe it’s because my future is as hazy as my past is clear. I can look to my past and see how I made it to the present, but I can’t look at the present and see where I’ll be in the future. Because of this, my present can lead to any future; nothing is too ridiculous. And although I often reminisce and think about the past—wondering if the decisions I made were the right ones—I can’t do that for the future. All I can do is face it head on. And although the future feels like it’s there, the true future doesn’t exist. It can’t exist because once we reach the future, it becomes the present. And once we reach the present, it just as quickly becomes the past. The past is really all that we have huh? The future isn’t real and the present is fleeting. These memories of what used to be is maybe all that I am. And each day as I forget more and more, I slowly lose pieces of myself.
But it’s not all bad, each day I gain memories as well. In a sense, as my life progresses, I collect only the memories that are the most important to me. A person can’t remember everything after all. So it doesn’t bother me that I don’t remember what happened last Thursday. Who cares. I remember other things that are more important to me. The ocean may not have a memory, but I do. As long as I remember the feeling of the ocean breeze, the sound of crashing waves, and the sight of the sun dropping below the horizon, the ocean can forget. Life is fleeting and our unreliable memories are proof of that. And although every human will eventually be forgotten, just like their memories, that doesn't mean their lives were meaningless. Rather, being able to forget something implies it's meaning. And just as life implies death, death also implies life. The fact that our lives are ephemeral makes each life unique and bittersweet, part of the memory of the universe. And in that sense, we'll never be forgotten.
