Do You Remember The Day That...? And The Power of Memories

Today’s entry is inspired by two movies I watched recently, Source Code and Limitless, which are themselves inspired by the amazing power our human brain has, particularly our memory.

Do you remember that evening ten years ago you and two of your best friends stole an old mattress from a random tube station and took it home so no one had to sleep on the couch again and how you carried it on the train and all the way from the station up to the fourth four flat?

Or do you remember the day your dad called you and told you that your grandmother was no longer in our world and was resting in peace, and how you broke into tears, alone in your room on that cold Friday morning before going to work?

Well, I do. Particularly since those are two of the many snapshots I have clearly vivid in my memory. You go and pick two random moments in your memory, now. Whatever they may be, good or otherwise. What do you see? What do you remember? Isn’t it all crystal clear, vivid, can you not even smell the moment or feel the heat?

It may sound obvious but once we live a moment, it is with us forever, even if we never look for it again, it is always there somewhere, ready to come back to life again at any time. Whether voluntarily or not, our memory is the most powerful source of pleasure, or pain, we have.

It's great to remember a great meal, and the people you shared it with, where and why.
I am a big fan of food pictures precisely because of that!
This one was in Ibiza, August 2011, by the way. Playa Las Salinas, a great day out.

We all remember what we were doing on September 11^th when news broke about the attacks in New York. I was at home in Tenerife having lunch, it was sunny and nicely hot. You see? I didn’t even have to refer to the year, 2001, for you to know what I was talking about. Your memory knew exactly what I was referring to. However to be perfectly honest I don’t remember what I was doing on September 11^th 2000 or 2002, or not that easily – do you?

I am no doctor, though there are a few in my family whom I admire for their passion and dedication, but if I had to study the human body I think I would be most fascinated by the brain. Even though “it sits there, doing nothing”, as I heard someone say the other day on national television, the brain is such a powerful piece of machinery, with such control over the rest of our body, which really mesmerizes me. Our personality or character too are incredibly powerful in defining who we are and what we do, and for intangible they are too truly captivating.

A combination of the two –brain + persona- makes us choose red over white, words over 1,2,3,4 (numbers), right or L3FT, or none of the above. Interestingly, they decide as well when to recall this or that particular memory, even without asking you permission first, how dare they?! Like the moment you are on your way to the airport on an early Tuesday morning for a business trip, and just as you are about to board the plane you randomly remember the day in high school, twenty years before, when you decided not to take the bus home but to walk, to see if you could speak to that girl you really fancied who you knew always walked home too. “Excuse me sir, your boarding pass?” the attendant asks you. And so there you are handing in your boarding pass with a silly smile on your face. Then you remember the girl was only interested in talking and nothing ever happened. And you smile again as you walk through to the plane.

And as we grow older, it's great to be able to sit back and re-live in our heads all those great memories.
Thank you Life.

And that’s what makes living life to the full worth it. I am not the kind always thriving to do great or crazy things every day and I really enjoy having quiet days. Thing is, ‘having quiet days’ too can be great in its own right. And then I can remember them in the future. Like the day I watched that movie, Source Code, on a Saturday afternoon and it made me cry like no other movie has made me cry before. For its own reasons, for my own reasons, but it happened. A combination of powerful memories so strong and vivid overpowered my present and conscious self in a way I had not felt before, with a movie.

And even though there was nothing I could do to change my memories, or the reality that created those memories, I realized once again how powerful our brain can be.
And how wonderful it is to be able to wake up every day and start it all over again. Because there are great memories out there waiting for us. 

Go and get them, now!

For that I cheer and say to the world, Thank You World.