Memory Lane

I always scrunch up my face when I come across a post labeled “ creating memories”. Remember, the slogan used to be "spending quality time”? Let’s see if I can spin this in a way where you can feel where I am coming from.

If the purpose of you creating said memories is to store them in your own memory bank for when you are old and reminiscing, then you should be aware that you will either succumb to some sort of dementia and will live in your own abstract world, or your memories will have been burned into your neural cells they way you chose to. Creating something the way you chose to experience it, not necessarily how it actually happened. If the purpose of creating said memories is to create them for your loved ones, you are still far off the target. Rarely, if ever, do people compute the same event the same way. The event itself changes via the eyes of the beholder. I think there are enough studies out there for me not to have to reiterate that point. It’s like this guy I know, who wants to spend family time together and "create memories" by forcing his children to be on his boat in the middle of the lake and literally telling them if they want to avoid family time, they will have to swim all the way to shore. I’m sure once they become strong enough swimmers, one of them just might do that.

I have come to believe that what matters is how you feel in each moment and how you are holding that moment for whomever you are sharing that moment with. First of, you have to feel those things that you want to feel in those shared moments, and not make it about a specific outcome, i.e. creating memories. Say for example if you go on an elaborate trip with your loved one[s] for the purpose of creating memories, you are so out of the moment, planning, rushing, becoming frustrated when things don’t go as planned, stressed or anxious because you want it to be a certain way. I’m sure you all have been there and I’m sure you all get the picture. Now if you were actually doing whatever you are doing because you want to feel a certain way about whatever moment you are creating, feeling it will actually infuse that moment with that emotion and most likely cross over into how the other person feels about it, too. Meaning if you are feeling happy that you are spending that moment with whomever, that happiness is what both you and the other party remembers.

You can relate when you conjure up any memory as one of your favorite ones because of how you were feeling when it happened. The circumstances don’t make for the memory you wish to leave behind for yourself or others. It is how you and everyone else is made to feel about it. I have chosen to consciously check in with myself to tune into how I feel about anything that presents itself in front of me, and when I get off kilter, I either adjust my perspective or at times remove what is in front of me [which is the more difficult thing to do in real life]. Of course there are still plenty of moments where it takes me much longer to tweak my perception to allow myself to return back to harmony, but we are all in a constant state of progress. Even when you choose not be part of your own growth, the river of life will push you forward one way or another.

https://youtu.be/VLaScTPAb54