Remembering

August 19, 2019

Greetings from the forgotten truth,

A few weeks ago, I was listening to a podcast and this question came up.  It was not the focus of the story, but it became so for me.  There was a reference to someone trying to document all the trivialities of her past and keeping them in various forms so she would remember them.  And she said something like “If I don’t remember it, what was the point of living it?”

Before I go any further, I will tell you I am woefully unqualified to address deep philosophical questions.  But I still chose to think about this, and to write about it.  Now you can choose to read it or not. 

Psychologists will tell us that the experiences we have are stored in our subconscious, even if we are not always aware of their detail.  Something happens, we react, it changes us slightly, and then it becomes part of our makeup, in some degree, for all our lives.  The experience informs other experiences. We feel differently today because of the cold sand in our sleeping bags when we were five.  Okay.

I have been sitting here in the quiet of my den, going over images of the last year.  Some are vivid, beautiful, life changing.  Some are only impressions.  Some are unclear, some I’m probably misremembering.  Some of what happened is lost, buried in some fold of my brain I can’t find in this moment, but will come to me, unbidden, in some morning I sit waiting for the sun to rise. 

And then there’s this: Somewhere out there someone is remembering that same year.  I am in some of those memories, so those paths cross and that creates something else.  They are misremembered and unclear and vivid and beautiful and just as real as my memories.  And mixed together they make some other real thing.  Multiply that times infinity.

If you can’t remember it, what was the point in living it? 

I can’t resist.  If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?  If no one hears it, what was the point?   Yes, it doesn’t make sound, no receptor, no sound.  It makes sound waves. It falls and the air rushes and things move and vibrations happen.  The tree, whether it has consciousness, whether or not it is aware, has lived out a purpose and even in falling has changed the world.  And nearby a butterfly lifts off and changes the world again.

 And it startles a whirl of birds that change the world again.  And I see them, and I am changed.

The universe began at some point and none of us were there to hear it or see it.  We simply live in the part unfolding now, see the result of that forgotten moment.  Our paths cross with the outcome of something that mattered, forgotten by all but the Creator.

Our lives matter not simply because we remember them.  There are our interactions with others, what we create, what we leave behind.  We were born with a light that extends out from us, shines on others, matters, then reflects off them into other lives.  And we shimmer in their light, even long after they forgot the details of how they touched us.

 Somewhere in that is our purpose, what we were created for, another philosophical question that will have to wait for the day we meet the Creator.  Our experiences don’t un-happen because we don’t recall them.  What effect they have is unknown, but as a dreamer, as a writer, I can see a glimpse of the possible and it brings tears to my eyes.

Another question that helps me is this: if we knew we would probably forget what was going to happen to us, would we still choose to experience it?  For me the answer is easy.  Hell. Yes.

 Give me the joy and the grieving and the ache and the love and the laughter and the baby’s first cry and all that knowing that one day you might erase it from my memory.  I want it.  I want it so much I can hardly sit still long enough to write these words. 

That tells you something; that if even if I can’t put words to it, I know in my very essence that it’s important. “If I don’t remember it, what was the point in living it?”  Do we need an exact record of life to make it worthy, like some kind of receipt for having been in love? I think we were made for greater things.  I’ll show you.  It’s incredible.

As the years stack up, I am aware of the experiences I recall, and honestly, the shadows of those I’ve forgotten.  It is a rich tapestry of living, this blend of the memories, clear and fuzzy, and the hints of others that smile from the wings waiting to say their lines.  Even as I sit here sifting a few from the last year, I know the point of all of it. 

Hope this finds you remembering what you forgot,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith