02 December 2008

shortcuts can slow you down

december! where did you come from? you are here, and i welcome you most heartily. bring on the cold weather, extra sweaters, Christmas music, twinkling lights, festive air... and lighter load. i know Jesus wasn't really born in december, but it is a beautiful thing to be able to spend the last part of the year in a slower-paced reflective spirit.

i often find myself tangled in a web of memories, especially at this time of year. usually more good than bad, but teeming with the emotion that comes with them. i don't find myself overly emotional, on the contrary, i watch these memories as if i were watching a movie. excuse the blatant cliche (blog name), but for HP fans, it really is like i'm filtering through my pensieve.

it got me thinking today about how much of our life is spent chewing the cud of our memories... mulling over the should-have-beens, the delights, the embarassments, the joys... it made me sad. is this why people cherish childhood so deeply? because everything is so new, innocent, fresh -- there are no memories to ensare us but the ones we make each day? are we, as emerging adults (and older still) wasting our lives re-living them?

i may have discovered my trap. i rearrange furniture as often as possible. i reorganize cupboards, notes, computer files, music, playlists, younameit. i desperately long to travel to new places, and go so far as to find new ways to drive to school. is my unquenchable desire for variety a cry to live life anew? am i running away from what i fear is wasting my life by re-living it? it could be. it probably is. my conception of the length of life has been rocked by what i've learned in medical school. i don't regret this, but i embrace it quite tentatively.

memories are not a waste. they truly are beautiful. but somehow, no matter how great the past, i shed them for life anew. what does this mean? time will tell.

inaudible melodies

serve narrational strategies
unobtrusive tones
help to notice nothing but the zone
of visual relevancy
frame-lines tell me what to see
chopping like an axe and
maybe Eisenstein should just relax

slow down everyone
you're moving too fast
frames can't catch you when
you're moving like that

well Plato's cave is full of freaks
demanding refunds for the things they've seen
i wish they could believe
in all the things that never made the screen
.jack johnson.

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