Resurrection pt. 8

Seems like every couple of months I make a feeble half-assed attempt at reviving this blog to its former (if ever) glory. It's busy with college and all, I'll admit, but that's no excuse. So I'll try once more, no promises. Call it my choice of pretentious New Year's Resolution.

But so anyway. I thought about writing about key events in 2010, but that's kind of hard and stressful so I'll just ramble and talk about stuff I guess.

Spending regular time trying to document your own life or form some kind of structured outlet for thoughts and opinions and stuff is a dangerous and uncomfortable thing sometimes. For one thing, it's this whole, what is a memory and how do we get (and here comes the English/potentially philosophy major in me speaking) meaning out of them?

Which for me, if you were interested, leans towards the experience angle of the memory, which I try to adhere to because, as a frequent Thinker and Over-Analyzer, I sometimes get caught up trying to, like, think about how to preserve the memory of something as actual thing is happening (in Pre-Memory state, if you will). Which is bad. Because that's not "living life" so much as being a part in this history in your head, this fiction you are consciously constructing in your--ok, my attempt to make my life meaningful (whatever the hell that is[1]). It seems much more fulfilling and even meaningful to just live things and then maybe retrospectively glance at a perhaps less clear but pretty awesome (well or sad or apathetic or whatever strong mood the memory calls for...) time. So it's like this for me: live and then think about how I lived. I'm not going to pretend I even follow this most of the time.

Are memories even private? Literally, sure, I guess, because to take the solipsistic stance here, no one can ever know what it's like to be someone else[2]. So any of our thoughts and memories and anything manifested by our individual consciousnesses are inherently private, and for anyone else to try to make them their own, or even just to appreciate them, seems to kind of damage or distill the purity of the original memory. And that has an effect on your own interpretation of the memory. Like, half of the things I did when I was a kid, I can barely tell now if it was what I actually did or thought, or if it's just how my parents took it to be or even how their own corrupted memories perceive them now; I can barely remember anything purely on my own[3]. So it's always a risk to share memories with other people, in a sense, especially things dear and innocent and pure to you that you don't want other people ruining. But on the other hand, that's a really sheltered and isolated life, where you keep everything to yourself, keep your histories and memories and identity hidden from other people. A tempting option at times, but hardly one meant for a good social friend-filled happy life, or even whatever it is you want. I mean, it might be the ever-persistent socialist in me speaking, but like many things, memories should be free, as in you should be comfortable sharing most of them, you know, the ones that may not be the most intimate, but that when necessary you can show people who you really are, if that makes sense. Besides, everything that happens to you isn't exclusively yours anyway. Things that happen to you with other people--it's like a shared memory, like covalent bonding in compounds. Hell, most of the stuff that happens to you that's remotely exciting is probably because of other people. So at least share with them and reminisce or remind or whatever. Point is: memories, though perhaps originally private, should be something you do share.

While I want to spend time writing here and informing and all that, I do want to keep some things out of here. Certainly not out of respect for "readers"[4] or the medium of blogging itself. It's just that, blogging, despite the interactivity of commenting and the Great Conversations and all, is kind of objective and distant, and if I wanted to talk about that kind of stuff, I'd either keep a diary/journal or talk to my friends personally.

So I guess then for the most part this blog will kind of be me trying to "briefly" assess, discuss, remember, rant, whatever it be, and you know, not obsess over or prioritize hugely, but think enough of to be worth spending time and sharing. Fun.

Tomorrow (probably): To do list for 2011

Also, comments are nice :)

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1. Isn't it a curious thing that we human beings have this concept of meaning? Like, when did we decide that there is some sort of necessity for a grand existential meaning and purpose for existence? I guess archaically it's in the formation of language, which itself is deriving meaning for noises and scratches, which I think is an incredible accomplishment for human consciousness and society. More modern times probably called for biological and philosophical discussions. There's probably a whole field of philosophy or linguistics devoted to this "meaning from meaning": the semantics of semantics???
2. See: Green, John, Paper Towns, Dutton: 2008.
3. However, I also blame this on the era of camcorders and cameras fucking everywhere.
4. I say this fully aware that most of you are like a couple of my friends, right.