Life is a continuum... at least that's how its meant to be. But occasionally we get stuck at random phases in our lives, moments we loved being in so much that we can't let them go, moments that made made us who we are, moments that broke us, moments we didn't let ourselves mourn, moments that we can't even begin to define... I like to call this the 'Yesterday' syndrome.
So like the boy that peaked in high school or the widower who still has long conversations with his wife... we all, to smaller degrees, hold onto precious memories. Resurrecting them at will, in moments of weakness. These memories, though they can be sources of great comfort, even joy are seldom an honest reflection of the actual event or person they represent. More often than not, we glorify what
was to mythical proportions until it becomes so perfect in our memories... it becomes that much more irresistible.
But then all around us, while we are engrossed in our memories, people move on... governments change, people die, people are born, ambitions achieved, dreams broken... life... continues to happen. And all this while... we stand there enchanted by, entangled in, moments long gone...
Poets write odes to the past, like a famous bard famously said in The Lady of the lake:
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone and forever...
Even movies pay tribute to this past-worship syndrome... Kill Bill- a moment in a woman's life that guides the rest of it... Seventeen again- the boy that peaked in high schood... To Gillian on her 37th birthday- a man who gets dizzy on his love for a woman that died two years ago...
So we know, victims to this syndrome aren't scarce... and have innumerable 'exhibit a's ' paraded before us as examples of why not to fall prey to this syndrome. And yet, like moths to a flame, we all do.
And with us thus stuck in moments past, the present, left to its own devices, goes awry. Slowly coming unstuck at the edges, letting the contents spill out and disappear through our careless fingers...
Would our memories disappear if we didn't constantly revisit them? Would they diminish?... No. In fact, if we let them catch us unawares instead of seeking them out, the experience might actually be even more profound... and perhaps, a little closer to what really was...
So maybe the key would be to not constantly revive and relive a memory... but to live in the now and let the memory take its own course...
