Well, who among us is capable of going forwards through the banks of remembering? Far more likely is the scenario that something that happened in the recent past will occur to you. Something else that may have gone down a little while longer ago will feed into that and before you know it you’ll have broken out the baby photos, poring over them and wondering what happened to the cheery visage peeping up at you.
As a breed, we’re pretty nostalgic. Not for any evolutionary benefit as far as I can tell. You don’t get too many lions who pause for a moment upon encountering old hunting grounds, picturing the very instance when they were king of the world and persevering to forget how that neat existence came crumbling apart. We wallow in our yesterdays as if they’re the key to heretofore elusive happiness.
Or maybe we’re endeavouring to learn from the lessons of history. You know from that unfortunate episode with the horse and the kite string precisely why those romantic impulses of yours aren’t going to work out as you might foresee. Actually though, you know where it went wrong before and can therefore course correct ahead of time. It will be a matter a moments and then you’ll be hailed as the romantic ruler of everything, who people would sell their first born just for the chance to spend an instance alone with.
This is one of the various problems with memories: they’re terribly fallible. It’s just as likely that things didn’t pan out precisely as you recall. There’s an equal possibility that someone not completely benevolent has been subtly messing with you, implanting memories that aren’t true in the slightest and twisting your reality this way and that for their unholy amusement. Or this life is what you make of it and no one can take it away from you. Probably.
Song choices courtesy of: Shpongle and Michael Giacchino