Grant Me the Serenity

We all have memories that are special to us.  Sometimes we wish that we could crawl back into these memories and somehow live inside them all over again, not to change things, but just to be there again, to feel the way the air felt different then, to look into the eyes of someone who has long since slipped away, to really savor and appreciate those moments in a way that was impossible the first time around when we had no idea how fragile and transient they were.  But the wave of time pushes us farther and father away from these memories.  We struggle against the sweep of the wave, straining to reach back and grab a hold of these things.  But the wave says, "No.  We have to keep going."

We've all had our share of regrets.  We turned right when we should have turned left.  We gave in to temptations that we knew we should have resisted, and we eventually had to face the consequences.  We acted on what we knew then, instead of what we know now.  We let opportunities slip through our hands, thinking that another one would be right around the corner.  We've all had moments when we finally realized it was too late to fix a mistake, and we clinched our fists and cursed our inability to undo our own stupidity.  We've all held something priceless in our hands, and we've stumbled and faltered, and before we even knew what had happened, we watched the thing shatter on the ground.  These shattered pieces are the wave of time.  One moment the thing is whole, and in the next it's laying there, broken forever.

But it's not only our own regrets.  We watch as the whole world moves and changes, evolving and transforming beyond our control.  We watch our old elementary school being torn to the ground.  We watch them build a shopping center in it's place.  We watch as stars fade out and things rust and rot away.  We carve our names into a tree, as though preserving it in stone, only to see that same tree chopped down and cut into firewood and then burned away.  We see the people around us passing one by one.  The wave keeps advancing, carry some forward, and leaving some behind.

But the wave sweeps on, and eventually we all succumb to the great equalizer.  Our bodies age and whither, until they're finally broken by the wave, scattered in pieces or laid in the ground.  New life is born in our place, and it grows and changes and undergoes the same processes along the crest of the wave.  Even the sun itself will die out and the galaxies will collide, and all the intricate traces that we've made in the sand will be smoothed out and erased by the relentlessess, unstoppable sweep of the wave.  But another star will be born in it's place, and again the process will go on, on a larger scale, until even all the stars and galaxies themselves are no more.  Eventually the wave will wash the entire slate clean and there will be nothing but darkness and emptiness and vast silence.  Then the universe will collapse in on itself, and maybe the result will be another Big Bang, and rebirth will happen once again on the largest scale of all.  And the wave will press on.

I know that time travel isn't a subject for everyone.  I knew that going into this.  Some people are fascinated by it's puzzles and possibilities, while others see nothing but confusing nonsense.  Nevertheless, I think time itself is something that we all care about.  It is one of the fundamental aspects of our existence.  In some form or another, it is a dimension of nearly every thought we have.  We think of it thousands of times a day, even now as you think of how many times you think of time.  It can seem cruel and relentless.  It can seem like a road of opportunities, waiting ahead.  Perhaps the true power over time comes not in looking for ways to manipulate it or alter its course, but to accept it as it moves us along to the next thing that's just about to happen...now.

(This posts is also available in extra cheesy version and chaos flavor and full-blown neurosis.)

About a Dream

For those of you who don't know, I write another blog called The Encyclopedia of Counted Sheep.  It's somewhere between a dream journal, and a collection of short stories.  Basically, I use ideas that I get from my dreams as a creative starting point for short works of fiction, and I build from there; sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.  It all depends.  Check it out, if you want.  Apparently my subconscious has some wild theories if its own.  

I bring this up, not just as a shameless attempt at cross-promotion, but because today's post is about a dream I once had when I was a kid.  I'm writing about it here because there's more to the story than just the dream itself, as you'll see.  So, it's kind of like I'm guest blogging on my own blog.  It feels kind of weird, but that might have something to do with the painkillers that the dentist has me on.  If I was over on the other blog, I guess I would call this post "Footprints in the Snow", but I'm not, so I won't.  You might walk away from this story thinking I'm a little out of my mind, but I guess I'll have to take that risk.  Anyhow, without further pointless rambling, I'll turn the floor over to my guest blogger, myself, who also just happens to be me: 

I had this dream when I was about 12 years old.  There was this blonde girl that I liked at school.  In the dream, she was my girlfriend and we were walking through the halls of the school, holding hands, which is probably as exciting as my imagination got at that age.  We passed everyone I knew in the halls, and I could tell from the looks on their faces that they were suitably impressed.  I had a big beaming smile on my face.  Everything was wonderful.  I couldn't have been happier...

...and then I woke up.

Except...I hadn't really woken up.  I was still dreaming.  I just dreamt that I woke up.  Nevertheless, I was quite disappointed to learn that my little stroll through the school hall with the blonde girl hadn't been real.  I refused to accept it.  I got out of bed and ran out of the house.  It was a sunny day outside; one of those days in late winter, early spring, where the snow had melted back to little patches on the grass.  I went to the spot where the school had been in my dream.  There was nothing but an open field there now.  I stared at it, stunned and defeated, shaking my head.  But then I noticed something.  In a big patch of snow in the middle of the field, I saw two sets of footprints crossing the length of it.  It was real.  We had walked hand in hand on this very spot.  The school had faded away, but the traces of our feet remained in the snow.

I was so excited, that I had to tell someone.  I ran back towards home, and I went to the next door neighbor's house where this girl who I was friends with lived.  I knocked at the door, and when she answered, I asked her to come outside so that I could show her something.  She had the same melting patches of snow in her backyard that were everywhere else.  I pointed out a big tree that was next to one of the snow patches, and I told her that we had to sit down beside it and go to sleep.  She looked at me a little strangely, but she agreed.  Now, I'll remind you that this was all still a dream at this point, but inside this dream we sat down under the tree and "fell asleep" in a matter of seconds and we dreamt that we were running across the snow patch.  When we reached the edge of it, I yelled "WAKE UP!", and there we were under the tree again.  We got to our feet, and I showed her the footprints in the snow that we had made in our dream.  Then, in a voice that somehow didn't quite seem to be my own, I turned to her and said, "See, dreams are real."

The moment I said that, everything changed.  We weren't in the backyard anymore.  We were down at the town square, standing under the clock tower on the courthouse.  It was just getting dark out.  I saw the blonde girl in the shadows of some trees across the park.  I tried to call out to her, but it suddenly seemed like everything was falling apart and spinning out of control.  I realized that this was all just another dream, and I could feel it slipping away.  The clock on the courthouse began to spin faster and faster, and it kept chiming the hour over and over until I finally woke up for real, and realized that it was my alarm going off.

I thought about this dream all day at school.  I couldn't get it out of my head.  It had felt more real than any dream I had ever had.  I passed the day in a kind of dazed preoccupation.  After school I ran into the neighbor girl.  I was itching to tell somebody about this weird dream that I had had.  I started telling her about it, but when I got to the part where I had knocked on her door, she had the strangest look on her face.  She told me that she had had the exact same dream, only it had been from her own perspective.  She told me about how I had come to the door.  She told me about falling asleep under the tree.  She told me about my strange voice when I said, "See, dreams are real."  She told me about the clock tower, and how she had turned around and I was gone.  She knew everything.

I wasn't sure what to make of this.  Neither was she.  We tried for months after that to repeat the experience.  Every time we saw each other, we asked about about the dreams the other had had, but they were never the same.  Eventually we gave up hope on the whole thing. Clearly, it was a one time thing, never to be repeated. 

I have no explanation to offer for this, no theories.  I leave it to you all to figure it out.  Was it just the power of suggestion?  Did I just imagine the whole thing?  Was there some sort of psychic phenomenon at work?  Am I still dreaming?  Maybe you just think I'm completely full of it, and I just made it all up.  I can certainly understand that viewpoint, and you're free to think that, but I promise you that it's completely true.  I don't understand it at all, but it did happen.  So...what do you think?

Memento: The Burden Of Memory

Memory may be the most essential element of the human mind.  It serves as our connection to the past, all that we have known, learned, and experienced.  It also serves as the expansive reservoir of our personality, which we draw from moment by moment in all of our responses, our actions and reactions to everything in our lives.  It is the weathered and worn seat of our souls and the cornerstone of our emotional existence.   A song or faded photograph or even a faint scent in the air can tap into this deep well of stored feelings.  All of our triumphs and regrets, our shame as well as our fond recollections, reside in out memories.  But even aside from all of these lofty characteristics, memory also serves a simple, utilitarian purpose.  It facilitates our practical ability to function in life.  It grants us the ability to retain the knowledge of who, what, and where we are, and most importantly, what we need to do.  It is primarily with the nature of memory in this last capacity that the movie Memento is concerned.

To start with I want to share three examples of things I do to help me remember things that I need to remember.  They're certainly not unusual examples, but they'll serve as useful illustrations that I'll be able to refer back to.  Anyway: 

1. When there's one important thing that I absolutely need to remember I usually write myself a note with a pen on the back of my left hand between my thumb and my forefinger.  Being left-handed, it would probably be easier to write the note on the back of my right hand, but being left handed also means I use my left hand more, so I definitely see more of the back of that hand.  So the gain in visibility is well worth the awkward effort of trying to write with my right hand.
2. I don't make a routine practice of making "to-do" lists; it's definitely not something I do every day.  But when I feel like I have an overwhelming pile of stuff to do, and especially when I feel like I'm having a hard time jumping in and getting started, sitting down and making a "to-do" list can be very helpful means of breaking it all down and making it all seem just a little more manageable. 
3. Like most people I keep a list of contacts in my cell phone.  I have it all organized by people's home, cell, office, email, etc.  One of the first things I do when I get a new phone is sit down and copy all the contact information from my old phone.  I refer to this list regularly.  If I'm talking on my home phone, I look up the number on my cell phone before dialing.  If I'm using the cell phone itself, I don't dial; I just hit a button.  If I'm filling out a job application, I have the numbers of many of my previous employers saved on the phone, so that I can refer to them.   

 Now, I noticed something about the first two things.  Although their primary purpose is a means to remembering things, I find that they also bring a certain sense of relief.  Once I write the note on the back of my hand, I'm pretty much free to forget about it.  I can release the tight grip my concentration has on this little piece of information.  I no longer have to worry about forgetting it.  The information is right there on the back of my hand.  In fact, I find that nearly 80% of the stress in my life comes from this endless responsibility to remember things.  That's why the "to-do" list comes in so handy.  More than half the aggravation of having a pile of errands to attend to is the necessity of having to remember it all and keep it straight in my head.  The "to-do" list removes that problem, and reduces it to the simple task of checking things off one by one.  So while these techniques help me remember, they also help me manage stress.  They take the edge off the burden of my responsibilities.

However, like most things in life, there's a trade-off, which brings us to the third item on the list.  Since putting these numbers on my cell phone, I've noticed a definite drop-off in my ability to remember phone numbers.  In the old days, I used to have dozens of phone numbers floating around in my head that I could recall effortlessly at a moment's notice.  Now that I've started putting them on my phone, I have trouble even remembering my own mother's number.  I don't even remember the number to the cell phone itself.  It's on the the phone itself under "phone information", so why bother?  So it seems the phone has taken the place of my memory.  While this relieves the stressful burden of remembering the numbers, I'm in serious trouble if I lose or break the phone.  

Although this may all sound like a dry and difficult subject to present dramatically,  Memento manages to pull it off.  It does so by presenting an extreme case, a man who has no short term memory whatsoever, a man who relies completely on the kind of reminders described above.  Rather than writing notes on his hand, he covers his body in tattoos that remind him of who he is, where he is, and what he has to do.  The task of which needs to be reminded is more that simply buying groceries and paying the water bill.  He's trying to to find the man who murdered his wife and robbed him of his ability to form new memories.  Yet, despite these exaggerations, the essential principles remains the same.  

For Lenny, the protagonist of the film, these "mementos" take on a life of their own.  Others take advantage of his condition and use this system of his to confuse and manipulate him.  In  fact we eventually learn that Lenny has even used the system to trick himself.  He is at the mercy of these mementos.  If he writes a note on a Polaroid telling him to trust someone, the note itself achieves the status of an unquestionable judgment, even if it turns out that he made a huge mistake when he wrote the note.  The mistake is long forgotten, and only the note remains as his sole guide.  Even his own drive and purpose fade way, replaced completely by task set down for him in this accumulated pile of notes and information.   In the end it seems that the task may have even been completed long ago, or might not even have been real to begin with, but Lenny deliberately perpetuates it because these notes and what they tell him to do are the only sense of direction and purpose he has left.

By showing us a man robbed of his memory, Memento demonstrates the importance and function of memory through its absence.  Lenny is a man adrift in life.  He lives in motel room, and the only reason he knows he lives there is because he has a picture of it in his coat pocket.  His entire world revolves around the leads that he believes will help him find his wife's killer.  He thinks of nothing else.  He has surrendered completely to his mementos.  He has been freed from the stressful burden of memory, and he has lost all control of his life in the process.  So the next time you write a note reminding yourself to "buy milk" or you jot down a phone number, and you breathe a sigh a relief that now you don't have to worry about the information slipping your mind...just remember that relying on your own mind might not always be a bad thing.