We are our memories. They form our stories. What has happened to us in the past has two important connotations, a) our experiences, what we have endured, what we have done and said is a cocoon surrounding us. An invisible albeit. Time passes, things happen in reference to that passing time, and all we are left with is a fuzzy image of those moments in some corner of our brains. Hundreds of such sepia pictures are stored in our minds forever. And, b)The erst while recall of these very stored images provide us our lore, our values, they define the 'eye' through which we see the world and ourselves.
Our memories make up who we are. They of course include the happy events and sad ones both. Usually, we are counselled to let go our sad memories, to try and forget what has brought us pain, to shut that part of our brain from access remembering which brings us sorrow and grief. The idea is only honor those memories that bring us joy and happiness. To me that is monstrous! when we deny what has shaped us, we deny who we are. We try failingly to edit ourselves. And that simply does not work. this chopping up of our memories, the fabric of our consciousness, only stunts who we are.
What we perceive as finer moments of our life, and where we feel we have made mistakes, incidents where we did not act most honorably, places in the past where we made poor choices, and spots which bring us shame even thinking about, are, in my opinion, our story.
We must not always try to play judge. And resist the temptation to condemn. Instead we should cherish our memories, collect all the blurred pictures good and bad both, hear the muffled sounds of days gone by, savor the taste and smell of different places in our history and weave our yarn. Unravel our story and tell it, tell it to ourselves and tell it to others.
Do you have a story to tell?
Comments
Post a Comment