Thursday, July 10, 2008

“Write about fading memories.. and our tireless efforts to preserve them...”

Tomorrow’s Memory

When I was asked to write about fading memories, the first idea to emerge into my thoughts was to write about all the wonderful things I could remember experiencing as a child. It was only later I discovered that this wasn’t something I could write about at all.

The human memory fascinates me. Countless psychologists dedicate time and study to this mind-boggling fact that is the memory, and the ability to remember. However I’m much more interested in the will we possess to recollect. What controls our capability to form a memory at one occasion and remise at another.

I truly believe there is a reason for this, just as there is a reason for everything on this earth and beyond. If our minds retained the possibility of storing every piece of information we encounter throughout our lifetime, to an extent that we could recall every trace of our existence in this life, could you imagine what life would be like? The world would come to an absolute halt. Forgetting is a good thing, much better than remembrance.

Although I don’t particularly favour to associate myself with what has become, I can’t help but find myself in the vast fields that is my past. Scouring through the archives in search for answers, for lessons, or sometimes just to find a smile and that loss of a single heart beat as my eyes fix on a gaze and my mind exerts on an expedition to once upon a time. I then find that I can in fact strongly relate to the title of this piece on another level altogether.

I am only human. And therefore am the owner of a discrete diary or memoir rather, into which only the most special memories are kept, locked away deep into the unknown of my heart. Good times, happy, sad and miserable times, times we laughed and times we cried with all that we have inside us.

Sometimes we cling onto our memories as a child would cling onto their mother, memories of loved ones who have passed on, events, occasions, people and places. Whatever the reason we sometimes cling on so hard, as if this were to change time. Or sometimes we use it as a tool to shape our future, the effects of which could equally be advantageous as they could be disastrous.

I’m not sure about those reading this now but generally I have found that we tend to make memories of those times of either utter euphoria or times of utter despair. Everything else seems to be a blur in between. And yet we do not tire, but instead invest in even more dedication to preserve what seems to be another life. Without which an immense sense of insecurity seems to creep up from behind and threaten all that we hold dear.

Memories are immensely personal, something nobody can take away from us, an escape in times of need. Its Gods gift, nature’s equivalent to the high tech mobiles, cameras and memory sticks of today. I’m truly grateful for all the wonderful times, even the saddest of times too. They have made me who I am today, unique, and unlike anyone else in this world. I’m blessed with beautiful memories and the reason is because I’m blessed with beautiful friends and family who make my reality. At the tender age of 19, I’m apprehensive of what is to become and tremendously attached to the memories I have chosen to preserve. However for the time being, I’m going to dedicate all that I have in making some magnificent memories for the future.