Saturday, September 20, 2008
Memory Like Water
Have you ever been overcome with emotion? I'm talking about something that hits you full-on so strong that it makes you run away, or at least really, really want to.
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I heard a story once about a man in Hawaii who would walk down to the beach every morning to a spot where the waves crashed with considerable violence. There he would stand directly in the path the tide and attempt to stand up to the forces of nature. The water would repeatedly crush and pound him into the sand with each oncoming surge and he would stubbornly stand right back up and wait for the next onslaught, never once succeeding in keeping his feet underneath himself. he would continue this until he was too tired to continue and drag himself home only to return the next day.
He told people he did it to make himself stronger. If he could face off against Mother Nature and live then he could accomplish anything. One morning, he failed to return home. People knew he had been taken by the tide and they started a legend that the ocean absorbed his spirit and you could feel it when you were out in the water among the waves.
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It's a romantic story and I'm sure the myth created was a comfort of sorts for the family he left behind. But anyone who thinks rationally and objectively knows that his morning ritual was little more than suicidal insanity and his end was inevitable. There was nothing heroic about standing in front of a natural force the way he did. The ocean didn't care for him, nor did it hate him. The ocean swept him away like so much driftwood and never looked back.
As it is with the emotions that are so strong they can sap all physical strength from you bring you to your knees. They can bring forth currents of tears for no visible reason to the casual observer. Riptides of emotion that are too overwhelming to have merely one emotion as their cause. Instead they spawn form a complex mix of love, respect, desire, fear, and shame. They build up over time from our ignorance of our own selves and our self-protective memory blocks. They are let loose by a stray glance at a photograph or some other memory trigger that denies us the possibility of blocking out the past.
Only memory can hold something so strong. For only memory can allow something to build up such force over time. Experiencing these emotions in smaller pieces as they confront us on a day-to-day basis seems much more difficult and stressful but it disallows the bottling that can cause us to get swept away.
Sometimes I wonder if people whose memories are not as clear and vivid as my own feel these emotional floods the same way. Can they really feel all the emotions that memory brings if their memory cannot bring the same quality of images to their present consciousness? Is vivid memory an obstacle to emotional development because it can keep a person stuck in former moments with former emotional tags?
Just as that man in the story was stupid to stand in front of something too strong to withstand, we would be stupid for stubbornly and repeatedly facing the things that will eventually rip us apart. Having something make you strong means nothing if your end comes too early for you to put your strength to use.
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I heard a story once about a man in Hawaii who would walk down to the beach every morning to a spot where the waves crashed with considerable violence. There he would stand directly in the path the tide and attempt to stand up to the forces of nature. The water would repeatedly crush and pound him into the sand with each oncoming surge and he would stubbornly stand right back up and wait for the next onslaught, never once succeeding in keeping his feet underneath himself. he would continue this until he was too tired to continue and drag himself home only to return the next day.
He told people he did it to make himself stronger. If he could face off against Mother Nature and live then he could accomplish anything. One morning, he failed to return home. People knew he had been taken by the tide and they started a legend that the ocean absorbed his spirit and you could feel it when you were out in the water among the waves.
----
It's a romantic story and I'm sure the myth created was a comfort of sorts for the family he left behind. But anyone who thinks rationally and objectively knows that his morning ritual was little more than suicidal insanity and his end was inevitable. There was nothing heroic about standing in front of a natural force the way he did. The ocean didn't care for him, nor did it hate him. The ocean swept him away like so much driftwood and never looked back.
As it is with the emotions that are so strong they can sap all physical strength from you bring you to your knees. They can bring forth currents of tears for no visible reason to the casual observer. Riptides of emotion that are too overwhelming to have merely one emotion as their cause. Instead they spawn form a complex mix of love, respect, desire, fear, and shame. They build up over time from our ignorance of our own selves and our self-protective memory blocks. They are let loose by a stray glance at a photograph or some other memory trigger that denies us the possibility of blocking out the past.
Only memory can hold something so strong. For only memory can allow something to build up such force over time. Experiencing these emotions in smaller pieces as they confront us on a day-to-day basis seems much more difficult and stressful but it disallows the bottling that can cause us to get swept away.
Sometimes I wonder if people whose memories are not as clear and vivid as my own feel these emotional floods the same way. Can they really feel all the emotions that memory brings if their memory cannot bring the same quality of images to their present consciousness? Is vivid memory an obstacle to emotional development because it can keep a person stuck in former moments with former emotional tags?
Just as that man in the story was stupid to stand in front of something too strong to withstand, we would be stupid for stubbornly and repeatedly facing the things that will eventually rip us apart. Having something make you strong means nothing if your end comes too early for you to put your strength to use.
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Tuesday, September 02, 2008
CLEAR! BZZZZSST!
Thump...
Thump...
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
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Thump...
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
Thum-thump
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