Saturday, September 26, 2009

Memories

Warning. It's late I can't sleep and I'm not doing much editing for spelling, content, factual errors or reasoning. Enjoy!

A friend got me thinking about memories. I thought of how it's usually imposible to know, what is really a memory and what is just remembering the story. It's part of the computer code, it saves the data but just like how text takes less space than video. Anyway she talked about specific things, like colors, stand out for her. My memory is pretty vague. I just remember some basic rough draft type info and a feeling, maybe an image or two. It's the feelings though that really stand out. Feelings, they're so primal and simple. I can't always tell you why I like something, wine and movies come to mind. I can't always explain why one stupid comedy is hillarious and another is just stupid. But there is a difference. My dad has a great method for judging a live singing of the star spangled banner. Side note for all the shit I give our country for not living up to our own ideals I must say we have a pretty bad ass national anthem, done right it's impressive. You can tell a good rendition of it because the hair on your arms and neck stand up. Which is my fathers test. Feelings, they're strange things, sometimes they're a real pain in the ass. But sometimes they're great. Didn't mean to sound emo there, most of my life is reasonably happy, some things are great. And because as I already said most of my memories are just vague images attached to feelings it's really easy to sort the ones to keep, the good days, from the less important ones, the bad days. Then again that means I could have a pretty terrible life and barely even know it. Nah my life doesn't seem terrible, Oh no! Trapped in my own pointless lodgic.

I was about to say that I lost track of the point of this a while ago, but I'm not sure this post ever really had a point. I think I'm just confused as to why I'm not asleep.

Well thank you to the person who made me think about the past. You know who you are.

And thank you to ABC for being mostly awesome.
Or was it amazing?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't get goosebumps off any national anthems, but my body does the same thing when I hear certain songs. I've never really kept a record of what songs do that to me, but I should sometime and see if I can figure out what they all have in common.

I find with me, memory is very sensory. I was listening to an MP3 in the car today and all of a sudden I was remembering my trip to England back when that song was new and getting popular there. I remembered the radio I bought and the bedroom I slept in.. all stuff I hadn't thought about in years. Mothballs remind me of the smell of an old toy I'd gotten from a great aunt while in Toronto, and my first car - the trunk reeked of them.

As far as movies and feelings and memory, I'd seen a write-up somewhere on the interwebs complaining about George Lucas ruining the memory of Star Wars. The writer said something like his initial feelings of wonder at the movies was what made the movies so great. Having Lucas go back and "re-imagine" not only ruined the shows for him, but ruined his original memory of them as well. He could no longer enjoy the movies the way he remembered enjoying them.

It's unfortunate when a new experience manages to sour the old ones.

Heather said...

Our memories shape who we are today without question. Good, bad and ugly, they are part of us.