When I started writing here what seems like a billion years (and many different lifetimes ago), I recorded events. At the time, in my late twenties/early thirties, those things were important to me.
As I get older, I find that slipping away. There are plenty of things I want to remember, of course — people, events, places. But at least at this point on my personal timeline, those things are important to me from a sense of emotion attached to those events — and if I look at a photo or re-read the details of a day, more and more those things seem detached and disconnected from me. The things that manage to survive and stick in my head, on the other hand, I think do so because the emotions resonate.
I’m not a huge fan of recapping vacations, barring really amusing or monumental events. It makes me exhausted, and usually really disappointed that the moment has passed.
I am fascinated by my thought patterns and opinions, and the way they’ve evolved and shifted over the years. The things I found important, the things I discarded from my attention, and where I stand now. The common ground that lets me know that I’m still the same at the core, and the differences that display change (if not actual growth).
Steven Wilson’s new album is phenomenal on so many levels, but right now, at least, it hits me particularly hard on the thematic level. There’s this exploration of our interconnection (and lack thereof), and how that’s been affected by technology’s advance. And I’m the first one to say that I’m often comforted by the level of surface connection that social media and such allows me, but I’ve recently realized that I was isolatiing myself too much. The album kinda drove that nail home for me.
The song in the video is wonderful, and makes its point with clarity and grace. But watching the video — it’s a gutpunch, for certain. Even knowing what’s coming after the twentieth viewing — man, that’s rough. At least it is for me — I’m incredibly cognizant of the fluid nature of my life and my seeming inability to maintain long distance relationships. If you’re not in my life in the here and now, in the immediate proximity, then the tendency for drift is pretty strong. And I’m not a big photo person, or one who saves too many things.
And then at some point you look up, and another important person is gone, and has been, without a trace.
Water has no memory.
But maybe, at the core, I find some comfort in that — if not the concept, then the related feeling.
