A Collection Of Sunrises and Memories
Since I moved here almost 7 years ago, I have taken numerous
pictures of spectacular sunrises.
They fill an album in my phone, creating ‘memories’. But why keep them all? Why do we store so many pictures on our phones and rarely look at them? Same for keepsakes tucked away in cardboard boxes.
Memories occur when we reach back into our minds and hearts
and re-live an event from the past. But with smart phones, memories now seem to
live outside of ourselves. They’ve been outsourced.
Here are your memories, our phones tell us. Here – have a taste
of sunrise from 2021 and a serving of Christmas solitude from 2020 along with a
side of pasta in Italy in 2018.
Memories are within us, there to be recalled at will or triggered organically and unexpectedly by a smell, a glimpse, a taste, a phrase, a song.
They’re not meant to be served up to me on a platter. That’s not how it
works. But we’ve willingly bought into this new definition and processing of
memories, and I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
That is such an interesting perspective I hadn't thought about! I often use my little IG squares to remember something from a previous year -- am I misremembering the weather? Where did I put that Christmas decoration last year? IG to the rescue. I wonder if I think of that more as recall or a chronicle of the past. Memories are something much deeper and more meaningful. I love the way you have described memories: "Memories are within us, there to be recalled at will or triggered organically and unexpectedly by a smell, a glimpse, a taste, a phrase, a song." And those are absolutely stunning pictures!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting Linda. I agree that my phone pics can help me recall certain events and days. But you're right, that is assisting recall. Memories go deeper and I think maybe the word and concept of "memories" has been devalued by being collated and pushed to us by our devices.
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