One of the most remarkable things to me about aging is that while I feel that I understand people better than I ever have before, the world itself has become more of a mystery.
Our culture hops so quickly from moment to moment that I no longer feel the orienting pull of time.
The present feels unmoored from history in a way it never did when I was young. But back then history was only found in books and everything was yet to come.
Our on-demand society takes a lot of heat for our increased appetite for instant gratification but the opposite seems true. With my DVR, I can’t remember the last time I tuned in for a regularly scheduled program.
That isn’t instant gratification, it’s delayed gratification. I’m able to watch any show at any time and take advantage of that fact. We all do. The scourge of modern society is the spoiler.
But that freedom doesn’t extend to the news. People need to know the headline as it breaks. So much so that they don’t stick around to read the story itself. Opinions are formed on headlines alone.
When I grew up you could take a week to read the Sunday New York Times and be considered fully informed when the week was through. Today people act appalled if you can’t recite the most-current status of a story.
We’re stuck on the refresh button; never fully absorbing a moment because we’ve already moved on to the next.
It’s remarkable how impermanent each moment is. See? That one already passed.
It seemed significant at the time, but it was not. Except that it got you to this sentence, which leads you to the next.
Unless any of a thousand different possible distractions intervene, in which case you’ll probably forget to come back.
“I’ll remember that,” is the lie I tell myself most often.
I always think I’ll remember the current moment. But I forget far more than I remember.
If I don’t write it down, it’s quickly lost. The very premise of this column was hastily typed into a Google Doc in between making a pot of coffee and fully waking a stirring baby, lest it wither in the light of a brand new day.
Facebook often prompts me with a memory. “Hey dummy, ten years ago you were doing this,” or “don’t forget the time you did this thing,” but I usually have. Until suddenly I haven’t.
My memories have lives. They come and go as they please and can’t always be summoned on-demand.
60 Minutes once aired a story about people who vividly remember everything. It seemed like both a blessing and a curse.
The story mostly revolved around Marilu Henner, the actress from the 1970s sitcom Taxi. She also appeared on a season of Celebrity Apprentice. I couldn’t help but feel bad for anyone who has vivid memories of appearing on reality TV.
Vividly remembering every experience would make it very hard to ‘forgive and forget.’
My natural inclination is to hold a grudge, but by the end of the day I almost always ‘let bygones be bygones’ because insults lessen so much with time.
They’re still in the recesses of my mind somewhere, probably nestled in between the lyrics to Gangsta’s Paradise and the plot to the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan.
It’s better this way. I doubt I’d ever have a conversation again if I could actually remember every time someone interrupted me. I’d fume with resentment.
Forgetting is what makes remembering special. It can’t be done on-demand and spoilers are always welcome.
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