Well don’t get me wrong with the title.. I am not too old, wanting to be young again and re-living my youth..nor am I very sick and hoping to get back to healthy life . I am both young and healthy (thank you God J )
I was entering my guest house the other day from office... I was back early and just when I saw my watch, I realized this was typically the time that classes got over at MDI when it was a long day. Ha! What a Difference (or irony should I say), what seems early now was quite late earlier.. anyways some other time on that..
So I was reminded of college days and what did on a “typical” day after classes. Then, as usual I cribbed to myself about how life sucked after college... now I am here in this blessed place.. away from family and the “happening” cities of the country. I was missing college.
One thing is déjà vu, which is (literally put) the experience of thinking that a new situation had occurred before, the other is this. You imagine and attempt to re-live the past and re-feel what you felt then. But what happens is, one, you are not really in the situation anymore – not the place, not the people and not the time. And second, you don’t feel exactly in the same way. You feel something and then the next moment you are in the present moment – here and now.
So how do we really re-live a moment? Is it possible? I had once written something on “the sound of a feeling” (thanks to a friend at college who inspired me to contemplate about it – it was his “gtalk status”). What I concluded from my thought on that was that u can “listen” to a feeling..i linked it to memory and recognition of some similar scenarios, etc.
But let’s move ahead of it, and think, can we really re-live a moment? Let’s take example of repeating events in our lives – daily / mundane activities to periodic but infrequent events. Umm..to begin with – the journey to say, office everyday. You get up, get ready, have breakfast and then walk, drive, or travel by other means to office. Simple – everyday. Yet do you feel the same everyday? No. Either some office work has occupied your mind, or you are sleepy or lazy, or something in the newspaper is on your mind. Or you have someone with you today. Whatever be the reason - it is different. So I conclude – I do not relive any previous day during my travel from my place of stay to office.
Now, a repeating – but infrequent event, umm.. birthday may be? Common parts of a birthday – cake, phone calls, meeting people, party. Do we relive any previous birthday? Even though we keep saying – every year on my birthday I do this, or I go there, etc etc. But it feels different, every time. (of course with years passing by, the amount you sulk about the age factor is ever increasing)
Then why is it that we do it so many times.. I mean attempt to re-experience a feeling that we had in some past event? When someone passes away, people try to console their closed ones by saying, you know, think of the wonderful times you spent with the person. Or else if there’s been any other kind of a loss, or when you miss someone who’s away now, typically we try to “re-live” in the past. But does it really happen? What happens is an increased realization of the loss.
Photographs, videos, etc. All are visual memories - they capture moments and every time we look at them, we are reminded of the moment.
Reminded – well that’s what it is.
In an attempt to re-live we are in fact reminded of the past moment or event, and what we feel or live through is a complex mixture of the past experience, the current context and how we link the two. So we do feel and live something – but we don’t “re-live” any moment. Ever.
We can’t capture moments and preserve them. Memories and proofs of events in the past can exist, but the actual moment – once passed cannot be brought again. It was best placed at that point of time and space and nothing can re-create it.
Yet, in an attempt to (generally) be happy about some pleasant experience of the past, we try to re-live the history. (well I used the word accidently, and now what occurs to me is that phrase – history repeats itself). Moreover history seems too ancient, so let’s just stick to the word past as for now.
Funny isn’t - wanting to re-live, is after all fully a fallacy that we try to believe every day. Give it a though- you will remember that what you did while trying to relive you were actually just re-minded of the past! :D
Live the moment – (even if you don’t do it on purpose you are actually doing it), ‘cause you can’t re-live the past and you may not have anything to live in future!
