The Memory Condition

It's an interesting human ability to be able to live in the present and dream of the past. I think that word dream actually describes it quite well, the more i think about it. It seems like the more time that passes, the more dream-like a memory becomes. Not that it loses it's vividness or potency, but it starts to seem like something that happened to someone else, or something you saw in a movie.

I was talking to someone from my past yesterday - the girl I'd moved to Illinois for, in fact. I didn't really start full-on reminiscing until today when i was getting tired and had a lot of quiet time where introspection couldn't help but creep in.

I started thinking about how much I wanted to re-experience my life. How I wanted to just do it all over again. Not to change anything, mind you, but just to re-experience it. I have a very firm belief that I am in the best place that i could be. Seems a bit egotistical, but i honestly think that i have lived my life the way i've felt is most correct, and i've come to where i am because of it. I cannot imagine any way that i could be happier or more fulfilled in my life.

But wouldn't it be incredible to be able to re-experience it all?

Maybe that's why one of my first beliefs about deja-vu was that it was just you remembering seeing that same thing in a past life, because you keep living your life over when you die.

I used to think that there was a kind of catch, yknow? Live your life over and over till you get it right. But really, what then? Disappear into the ether? Move on to some other plane of existence? Join some cosmic force?

Maybe all our lives we are only experiencing the moment before our death when our entire history flashes before our eyes. Maybe all we see or seem is just a dream within a dream, right?

I was also thinking about how different things feel in my memories than they do in my day to day life. I was thinking specifically back to my time in New York, and my time in Paris. How looking back on it, I feel so much energy and potential in the life I once had. I started trying to extrapolate that feeling into my other memories and determine when exactly i had lost it.

I look back on those times and it's almost as if the world was brighter and i was capable of anything ... so when did the world become rigid and impossible? When did i lose that infinite energy of endless possibilities?

I started placing memory after memory in the best chronological order that i could.

APO Nationals at the Mall of America? Infinite energy and possibilities.
Walking the streets of New York? Ditto.
Rollerblading in Paris? Yep.
Taking part in the Habitat for Humanity "Shack-a-Thon"? Si.
The night before i left Illinois? Still there.
Running laps around that park in Guadalajara? Yes.
Meeting LuAnne at the party. Most assuredly.
Playing XBOX in our apartment? Uh huh.
Moving into our house? Yeah.
Hiking up the Mongollon Rim? You bet.
Surfing in Maui? No doubt.
Going to the Brazilian meetup today? I can't believe it, but yes!

It's amazing, but that feeling that i've always attributed to being solely a part of my memories because it was an intangible (but memorable) piece of my youth is in reality something that i just take for granted on a day by day basis.

The world is so incredibly full of infinite potential, yet while i can feel it in my memories of just a few moments ago, i can't feel it in my perception of current time and space.

To me this boils down to two possibilities:
a) i'm adding this perceived energy to my memories. Altering them slightly to fit both my desired recollection and my current outlook.
b) my perception is accurate in my memories but is impossible to hold on to in the present.

I guess it's kinda like surfing (now that i'm an expert har har) in that when you're riding the wave you're thinking about where you're going, how you're positioned, and the feel of the board under you and the wind in front of you. It's not until you look back or see a picture of yourself later that you comprehend or can appreciate the force that was pushing you forward.

If there's one lesson i can take from all this, it's that my memories are just that. I wasn't better or more capable. There wasn't anything more available to me in my life then than there is now.

Now i just need to learn to appreciate the infinite potential of my present like i do the infinite potential of my past.

Rockon.

Hello? Is this thing on?

You know what i haven't done in a long time? Blogged. So i figured i'd sit down and tell y'all a little of what's going on lately.

WEDDING
As you may or may not know, i'm getting married - w00t to that! Wedding plans are complete and all that's left is the little things, so we're essentially gtg! It's pretty dang exciting to have the big day coming up ... more so to know that our "new life" together starts in a little over 4 weeks!

It's also interesting how little i actually anticipate our lives will change. I mean really - we've been living together for a while now, and i really can't see us doing anything terribly differently after all is said and done.

CLOVERFIELD
We just watched cloverfield tonight, btw, and it was hella good. i've seen some pretty negative reviews out there, and i really have to wonger wtf they're thinking. i mean, this isn't oscar material - i don't think it's meant to be. It ALSO is not the average monster flick. This is very much about a group of friends who find themselves mixed up in a panicky mass of pounding feet and terrified screaming.

What do you do in that situation? I guess ultimately you do the best you can - you cling to something you know, or think you know, and hold on as long as you can. Sometimes that thing helps you persevere ... sometimes it's ripped savagely away from you as tears of mad frustration roll down your face to join with the anguished cries of terror and denial emanating from somewhere deep in your soul.

Not that that happens, i'm just saying.

SPIRALFROG
BTW, if you haven't heard of it, there's a great new site out there called Spiralfrog that has a few agreements with some key record companies that lets them provide you with a decent variety of artists and albums for your LEGAL downloading pleasure. Unfortunately, the files are all DRM'd to hell, so you can only copy them to a portable device. Fortunately, there are ways around that. Of course, i don't recommend it or endorse it ... i'm just sayin'. ;-)

SOLVING THE UNSOLVABLE
I was having a conversation today about everyone's favorite "root of all evil." I ended up bringing something up that i've had in my head for a while now: I read this thing a while back on (someone else's) Starbucks cup. It essentially said that we can't solve poverty by giving every poor person money, and we can't solve humanity's negative effects on the global environment by changing a few lightbulbs.

I guess there's a lick of truth to that. Of course, that's the problem i have with it. It really grinds my gears (ha ha - love that family guy) that what people are really saying when they say "I can't just give every poor person money" is "i can't just give every poor person money and not be poor myself." Of course, if people would just stop trying to have more than the other guy, this wouldn't be an issue! There are no poor people if there are no rich people, you know?

I guess the real problem there, though, is how do you inspire people to keep working and coming up with ideas, etc. I mean, let's face it, most of the advances we've had ... well OK, like, almost all of them, have come about as a result of a person or group of people trying to be better than they currently are. Of course there are plenty of innovations and changes instigated by people with the purest of intentions, but let's face it, without the right financial backing it usually won't go anywhere.

I guess it all comes back to a balance - same balance that rules everything. You can't have everyone want nothing, and you can't have everyone want it all. Ideally you have a mix that balances everything out. Preferably a fluctuating one which sets up a situation like that guy that keeps having to roll the boulder up the hill.

I mean, everyone would work a lot harder if they knew what it was like to be poor, but if they could never be rich, where would they go? So you need a kind of cyclic pattern where people have to produce in order to maintain their status ... kind of like a permanent middle class.

Wow ... this is going off on a tangent.

Of course ... that's all this whole thing has been ...

BTW, check out "Name of the Game" by Crystal Method. Awwww yeah.

LATAZ
OK, this is me signing off. I'm going to try to wake up for the spinning class at the local 24 tomorrow. It's fun stuff ... challenging, but fun. Who knows! Maybe i can even drop some poundage before the wedding! (riiiiiiiiiiiight)

NEways - lata gata. Catch ya on the flip side!

Christian