And what if I don't? Sunya leads a life richer in experience than mine -- it is largely by keeping up with hers that mine has gotten so full -- and makes no attempt to record it and consequently often doesn't remember a lot of it either. And is she any poorer for that? No. So would I be if I let these memories go? No.
So. Either I spend six hours attempting to give permanent life to this past weekend, or I just let it go. I think the latter is the wiser choice.
Why do I want to remember anyway? It seems in some vague long-past phase in my life I either decided that when I was old I was going to need to produce a detailed documentary of my life, or would need those details as idea-starters for fiction. Do these resonate with you? Do you have an impulse to remember everything? I bet not. I bet that by deciding to let it all go, I'm just being more like other people.
4 comments:
For sharing with others. When all you have left is telling tales, and people come 'round asking for them. It makes for fewer visits if your response is, "I think there was something going on, but damned if I know what it was!"
Then again, no guarantee you'll be around when you have little to do, or that your mind will be around, or other such grim thoughts I'd rather not think.
But for me, I wish to have tales to tell and I wish to be able to tell them in some fashion.
As for remembering *everything*, no. That's an impossibility and everything we remember is altered just by remembering it. But then, that's how stories are born, innit.
But.
you really don't need a justification for anything you do or choose not to do, you know. You don't have to be like X or Y or "other people" or whatever. You get to be you, and there's huge benefits to that.
I have a compulsion to write about my life, in certain ways, but not necessarily to journal everything. I like to record the things that have an emotional impact on me, however slight. Most of these go nowhere as far as ideas for fiction, but I still do it. Anything aesthetically pleasing is also emotional, and I like to photograph it or in some way have a tangible memory. This whole food photog thing totally makes me happy. But I do have time! :)
I think my life would be poorer if I stopped writing/blogging/whatevering. I enjoy it so much. I haven't been writing much fiction lately though. The lack of sales has taken away much of my motivation. I really thought my stuff would take off as self-pubbed without a whole lot of effort. It's a bummer. And I don't think my life will be any poorer if I fail to finish writing another silly romance novel. That's an entirely different thing from blogging, etc.
Plus I totes dig the interaction factor.
Love what N said as well. Esp about the telling of a story changes it.
Part of it is so I can, in the future and with some accuracy, remember what my feelings were within hours or days of some new experience in the sexual realm. Part of it is to capture the magic of a concert / performance / interactive experience in a way that translates the magic to people I wish I could share it with. Part of it is to remember new things I just learned about people I know and somehow capture the process of discovery. But I think it's all going to have to go the way of all life experience. It will be remembered as it needs to be, even if not accurately, so a little wisdom can be passed forward, or a brief entertaining tale told, or heck so some weird inexplicable picture associated with me floats forever upon the internet.
Alas.
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