I got caught in a rabbit hole the other day when I was busy researching a movie I know that I will never choose to see. The movie is the new horror phenom called Backrooms, produced by a young man in his early twenties. I have not seen a true horror film in over a decade (I don’t mind thrillers, but pure horror films are not good for my psyche, nor for anyone who has to be around me (for weeks and weeks and weeks) after I have viewed one) What intrigued me the most during my exploration of my crazy little, pointless rabbit hole, was a comment made by someone underneath the movie trailer. The comment was this:
“They say when you remember something you aren’t recalling the original event, you’re just recalling the last time you remembered it. So it’s always going to be a little different every time.”
I don’t know if this statement is true or not. My husband detests when I start any conversation with “They say . . .” He is one who quickly asks, “Who’s “they”?” However, I have a hunch that the above statement does have a lot of truth to it. My youngest son was recently on a jury, and he stated that the most muddling part in the jury’s deliberations, was just how much the recollection of the details of the story of the event, had changed over the years.
Wouldn’t your current emotional state of being and your current state of affairs have a large effect on how you perceive not only what is happening now (and what you hope to have happen in the future), but also have a large effect on any memories which you currently bring to the forefront of your mind? When I am remembering past happenings, it always strikes me as unusual as to what actually has stuck out for me in any particular memory. Sometimes seemingly meaningless objects or statements are what sticks in my memory bank, the most. I’ve noticed as I’ve aged that my short term memory (which has never been my strong point to begin with) seems to worsen, yet I often surprise myself with what my long term memory is able to recall.
“They say” (ha!) when you’re focused on your past, you tend to live either in regret or in fantasy of a romanticized past, and when you are focused on the future, you are swarming yourself in anxiety. In today’s fast-paced, technologically focused world, mental health practitioners continually preach the power of staying present. We all know the wisdom of presence, but practicing it regularly, for some reason, is not an easy task for most of us. Maybe we don’t love our peaceful states of being, as much as we pretend that we do. Maybe being “peaceful” bores us. Perhaps we like to embellish our memories or freak out about our futures, because we like the the thrill of intense emotion more than we like to admit. Maybe being the narrator of our stories makes us feel like we have more control of ourselves and our lives than we really do? I don’t really know. I bet “they” know . . . . .
“We don’t remember days, we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese
“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.” – Oscar Wilde
“What am I? … The sum of my past experiences, tied up together in a bundle with the string we call memory.” – H. G. Wells
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.