Reminiscence

[IceQube]

<p>Do you often reminisce? Do you ever find yourselves lost in a memory? </p>

<p>Is it painful to realize how many years have gone by, or painful to wonder what you could have done differently? Or is it bittersweet - you’re glad that it happened, but sad that it’s over, or sad that it could have gone differently? Or is it pleasant - you’re happy that it transpired? </p>

<p>I ask because it’s been summer, and the volley of work and activities has lessened enough to allow me to just have a little time to myself, a little time to think about something other than school, and therefore think about what I want to, or reminisce over what has passed. I might sit down and mull over things long since transpired, or over things only recently done. I might sit down and flip through a photo album, look at the date stamp, and realize it’s been almost a decade since I was that small, that cute, that young. Or more cynically: that na</p>

[Rush10]

<p>Your post sounds like the foundation of a college essay!</p>

[enfieldacademy]

<p>there is something a little uncomfortable about the human experience of time for a lot of people i think, how so much can happen yet in retrospect seem super condensed. experience feels like it evaporates into almost nothing after it’s over a lot of times to me.</p>

<p>when i was around 10, and just getting a more grown-up perspective of time, i remember having the thought that i would be old some day, at the end of my life, and that when that time came everything that preceded it would seem to have happened in a flash. </p>

<p>of course, like any child, i felt that an eternity lay before me and that time. but that did not console me because i knew it was only an illusion, i had gained just enough sense to know that day would come no matter how i lived my life until then, that it could not be prevented, and that when it did i would be at the end with nothing. that thought made me scared.</p>

<p>i guess it was like anxiety over the time before death, not death or dieing and no longer existing, but the quiet time when everything is winding to an end and you wish is wasn’t.</p>

<p>now sometimes i just long to feel the slowness of time like i remember time sometimes feeling. i want some moments of being outside in the sun and sitting down just listening to the sounds. above all, i want to time to feel slow. cause somehow i feel that compensates for it feeling so fast. then i don’t have to be as angry at it.</p>

[IceQube]

<p>@Rush10 - Thanks :)! </p>

<p>I wonder if I should have saved it, because every time I finish one of these essays, I am exhausted. My fingers: numb. Brain: dead. Emotionally: empty. It takes quite some time for me to build up my creativity for an essay like this. </p>

<p>And in any case, I would feel awkward having my guidance counselor - or anyone that knew me personally - proofread this essay before I sent it to a college. Only to the teeming and anonymous thousands can I throw my work without too much self-consciousness, although I admit that I am often stung by less-than-congratulatory comments. Yes, I’m narcissistic like that. I write these long, sometimes pedantic, and likely pretentious, posts partly for recognition, partly for catharsis, but also for serious consideration and discussion. </p>

<p>But yes, absolutely, this could be the base of one of my college essays :D! A couple tidbits from this essay, a few thoughts from another one of my essays, thrown together - a great recipe!</p>

<p>@enfieldacademy - your discussion of death reminds me of Nietzsche’s concept of a “tremendous moment.” Basically … </p>

<p>You can live forever. However, this eternity is not what it is traditionally regarded to be. Instead, you live forever by living your own life over, and over, and over. </p>

<p>Could you handle that sort of eternity? </p>

<p>Is your life worth putting on repeat?</p>

<p>Are the zeniths, the apexes, the peaks - the moments you remember and recall and reminisce over - tremendous enough - in face of the troughs, the dips, the depressions? </p>

<p>Is there even that one event that makes your entire life worth living again? Do you have that “tremendous moment”? </p>

<p>What would your tremendous moment be? Even if you don’t feel as if you’ve quite had one yet, what would you like yours to be? A love affair? A heroic moment? A crowning achievement?</p>

<p>I suppose Nietzsche is railing against the middle way - the life of moderation - the road with no bumps. Such a life is not worth living again. Sure, it might be safe, but what’s a roller coaster without the ascents and the falls? </p>

<p>Random question @enfieldacademy - do you write your replies while listening to music? I find that music helps cultivate my creativity.</p>

[IceQube]

<p>

@enfieldacademy

how so much can happen yet in retrospect seem super condensed. experience feels like it evaporates into almost nothing after it’s over a lot of times to me.

</p>

<p>Could this be the result of an uneventful life? Perhaps all we remember are the peaks, and our lives seem so condensed because the wavelengths are long.</p>

<p>

@enfieldacademy

at the end of my life, and that when that time came everything that preceded it would seem to have happened in a flash.

</p>

<p>The image you invoke pervades our society. The idea that one’s life “flashes by one’s eyes.” It’s an idiom. It is typically invoked in a near-death situation. I wonder what the significance of this idiom is. Do our lives really flash by our eyes? If so, why do we complete this instantaneous inventory of our lives and our final balances?</p>

<p>

@enfieldacademy

of course, like any child, i felt that an eternity lay before me and that time. but that did not console me because i knew it was only an illusion, i had gained just enough sense to know that day would come no matter how i lived my life until then, that it could not be prevented, and that when it did i would be at the end with nothing. that thought made me scared.

</p>

<p>I similarly was scared of death, but now it’s been pretty much pushed to the back of my mind. I am numb to death now. TV, movies, music, news - all I see is death. I understand it is inevitable to us biological constructs; even so, I don’t worry too much about it. I’m not nonchalant about death; more apathetic. I hear all kinds of stuff about how people are told they only have 6 months to live, which sparks a sense of urgency in them. I am, unfortunately, spoiled by a sense of security - I am confident that I have more than just 6 months to live - lest I am the victim of an unfortunate accident. I wish I could live my life urgently, always pushing the envelope, but I cannot muster that sort of will, no - not with my present circumstances. And it is unfortunate. Squandering my riches because it seems to abundant.</p>

<p>

@enfieldacademy

now sometimes i just long to feel the slowness of time like i remember time sometimes feeling. i want some moments of being outside in the sun and sitting down just listening to the sounds. above all, i want to time to feel slow. cause somehow i feel that compensates for it feeling so fast. then i don’t have to be as angry at it.

</p>

<p>I too enjoy the slow moments of life sometimes. School and its hectic, breakneck cadence robs me of the time for me to just reminisce for an afternoon. I too would enjoy the occasional idyllic moment in an undisturbed part of nature. Such a prospect could only be sweetened by the addition of a female accomplice. I always look forward to night, because that’s when I can experience the slowness. That’s when I can head outdoors into the veil of darkness, shed all my self-consciousness in the cloak of night, walk or jog, and just reminisce about disparate things.</p>

[JimboSteve]

<p>

Do you often reminisce? Do you ever find yourselves lost in a memory?

</p>

<p>Everything I see or hear or touch is filtered through memory and experience. But as for pure reminiscence, I do little of that. My memories are more like notions of ideas and feelings than pictures and snippets of experience, which I hear is the mode by which many people remember. There are some things —<em>early memories —</em>that I still hold in my mind as vivid image and sound and color. Before I learned to read, my experience of memory was a lot more standard, I suppose, and that’s left over in the form of early memories. </p>

<p>

Is it painful to realize how many years have gone by, or painful to wonder what you could have done differently? Or is it bittersweet - you’re glad that it happened, but sad that it’s over, or sad that it could have gone differently? Or is it pleasant - you’re happy that it transpired?

</p>

<p>There are things I miss doing — things that I am now too old for, or incapable of — but I find pleasant the knowledge of having done them. I remember playing tag with my friends (and also, with my dad, who was quite a fun one), and I remember the rigid structure and plentiful free time of high school. I remember sleepovers. I remember the first time I watched ■■■■■ 2, which inspired me to create a Bad Movie Club through which I developed some close friendships. I miss the fundamental newness of things. I miss believing that everyone had integrity, that everyone valued it the way I did. </p>

<p>

I was a year older. Another 31 million or so seconds - gone. Deducted. Withdrawn, and never to be returned. Taken, and not borrowed… There’s just something about the fact I was doing the same activity exactly a year apart. This reminds me of something else I did. I recruited a friend across the country to stand up at the same time I did. We did, and for a moment, I felt a sort of profoundness.

</p>

<p>This is a sad thought, but a true one. And a happy one, too. </p>

<p>

Part of what catalyzed this post was my discovery of a video showing a 32 year old man having a “conversation” with his 12 year old self.

</p>

<p>I’ve watched it, too. It was awesome. </p>

<p>

The question that remains is why are we so mesmerized by time, space, and distance?

</p>

<p>Because they limit our experience.</p>

[IceQube]

<p>

@JimboSteve

I miss believing that everyone had integrity, that everyone valued it the way I did.

</p>

<p>lmao.</p>

<h1>got’em</h1>

<p>Tear 'em up Jim :)! </p>

<p>

@JimboSteve

Everything I see or hear or touch is filtered through memory and experience.

</p>

<p>That’s deep bro.</p>

<p>In all seriousness, that’s true. I remember that a few issues ago, Time magazine was trying to deconstruct Justice Kennedy to see how he would vote on the Affordable Care Act. His childhood friends, teachers - everyone was interviewed. I’m probably taking Hume out of context, and correct me if I am, but we are a bundle of experiences. </p>

<p>Sometimes I think that we fail to understand other people not only because we fail to put ourselves in their shoes but also because we have never walked in their shoes. Why is he so prejudiced? Maybe because of a life-altering event? </p>

<p>

@JimboSteve

Because they limit our experience.

</p>

<p>?</p>

<p>Are we scared of experience? Do we prefer reveling in our memories? Do we prefer the predictability of the sandbox we call memory and fear actual experience?</p>

[Foodlover001]

<p>IceQube: Your posts are so philosophical and deep! You’re a great writer!!!</p>

[IceQube]

<p>^<3. Thanks Foodlover!</p>

[IceQube]

<p>

@JimboSteve

@IceQube

I was a year older. Another 31 million or so seconds - gone. Deducted. Withdrawn, and never to be returned. Taken, and not borrowed… There’s just something about the fact I was doing the same activity exactly a year apart. This reminds me of something else I did. I recruited a friend across the country to stand up at the same time I did. We did, and for a moment, I felt a sort of profoundness.

This is a sad thought, but a true one. And a happy one, too.

</p>

<p>I’m interested in how you interpret it as happy. I can speculate - we become more experienced; we have hopefully enjoyed at least some moments of felicity in these 31 million seconds, and so forth - but how, exactly - is the thought that 31 million seconds have slipped from our hands a happy thought to you? I’m not questioning your premise that it is a happy thought. Just wondering how it is :).</p>

<p>

@JimboSteve

I’ve watched it, too. It was awesome.

</p>

<p>Now if we watched it at the same time, that would have been profound.</p>

[JimboSteve]

<p>It’s happy because, though you can’t keep the sand from trickling out from between your fingers, you seem to have managed to let the sand fall into some worthy endeavors. </p>

<p>I feel like I’m stretching the metaphor too far, but who cares?</p>

[IceQube]

<p>Reminds me of “The Sand and the Sieve” from Fahrenheit 451.</p>

<p>

@JimboSteve

you seem to have managed to let the sand fall into some worthy endeavors.

</p>

<p>Let me stretch it further. </p>

<p>Some grains of sand have slipped into the delicate interior of an clam, and the result? A beautiful pearl :).</p>

[JefferyJung]

<p>

@JimboSteve

I miss believing that everyone had integrity, that everyone valued it the way I did.

</p>

<p>This strikes me personally. I feel like as the years go by, I become more cynical. Unfortunately, as you have said, people do not value integrity the way I do. What saddens me more is the callousness that grows as years pass by. At first, people sacrificed their principles, and they were sincerely remorseful. However, it seems as if they’ve sunk so low that they’ve grown indifferent to their immorality.</p>

<p>To Jimbosteve and others:
Do you download music illegally? I fail to see many high school students who don’t, and I would like to get some input from you guys.</p>

[IceQube]

<p>As the years go by, we experience more, and through experience, we are bound to meet more dishonest people. Perhaps this accounts for the lack of integrity we perceive. </p>

<p>Two, as we journey through life, we become more attuned to the world. We stop believing the existence of tooth faeries and Santa Claus. We start tuning in to CNN and Fox News, and we learn of the Harvard weathervane. Perhaps our heightened attentions account for the progressively greater lack of integrity we perceive. </p>

<p>Three, perhaps there is a growing moral deficit around us. Ironic how there could be one despite the fact that we are in a fifth Great Awakening right now. </p>

<p>@JefferyJung and JimboSteve - what is this lack of integrity you speak of? Is it integrity at the personal level? Or is it integrity at a larger level; are you speaking of national and world affairs? Or both?</p>

<p>I have not perceived any significant change in peoples’ integrity on the personal level. Some people are just disingenuous. I deal with them on a daily basis. I wish everyone could be perfectly candid, or at least more so. On a larger level, however, I similarly observe dishonesty everywhere. Whether there has been a dramatic shift over the years in the level of dishonesty on the national level, I cannot say; I lack the clairvoyance that age provides.</p>

[JefferyJung]

<p>I don’t know how JimboSteve is defining integrity, but I’m defining integrity as people’s ability to discern what is right and what is wrong. Moreover, it’s how people demonstrate honesty.</p>

<p>Some examples that demonstrate lack of integrity:

1. Academic dishonesty(cheating on a test or copying homework)
2. Sexual immorality
3. Lying irrationally
4. Cursing
5. Downloading music illegally</p>

<p>*I guess some people might not agree with me on 4 and 5.</p>

[IceQube]

<ol>
<li><p>I think this becomes more of a problem as pressure increases. Pressure tends to increase in high school; e.g. the pressure to get into a good school. </p></li>
<li><p>I think this becomes more a problem in high school as well, as we begin to discover our sexuality. Adults would probably argue that yesteryear’s teenagers are a lot tamer than today’s teenagers though. </p></li>
<li><p>Universal problem. </p></li>
<li><p>I hate it when friends curse. But I do it myself sometimes. Kant would be disappointed. </p></li>
<li><p>Universal problem.</p></li>
</ol>

[JefferyJung]

<p>It doesn’t have to be a universal problem. I understand that lying has been a timeless thing. But downloading music illegally has not always been a problem.</p>

<p>Anyway, I fear that people have grown indifferent to these iniquities. For me, integrity is probably the most valued quality. If I have a quiz that I didn’t study for, I’d rather fail it than cheat. If there is a homework assignment I did not do, I’d rather take a zero than copy someone else’s work. At the end of the day, it’s what I have done, and I should be proud to present MY work.</p>

<p>I don’t want to take away any more from your original post. As for your original post, I don’t reminisce because I seem to forget many things… :o I remember strange minor things about people, yet I forget the big events in my life.</p>

[IceQube]

<p>

@JefferyJung

For me, integrity is probably the most valued quality. If I have a quiz that I didn’t study for, I’d rather fail it than cheat. If there is a homework assignment I did not do, I’d rather take a zero than copy someone else’s work. At the end of the day, it’s what I have done, and I should be proud to present MY work.

</p>

<p>Commendable qualities. Unfortunately, such qualities are lacking in many high school students. I wonder how this will play out in life for those kids who habitually cheat. One cannot always cheat her way through life. There isn’t always an answer key. Perhaps this is a fault of our educational system. Everything is too objective - multiple-choice tests, fill-in-the-blank quizzes, matching assignments. People stop wanting to learn the material as much as they want to learn the order of the correct answers on the Scantron. Perhaps we should reduce the number of “objective” tests and give more short-answer/essay-type tests. These are a bit more flexible and allow the student to more easily demonstrate what she knows. Obviously, these take longer to grade than do Scantrons. But the only thing that bubbling out a Scantron helps you with in the real world is filling out a lottery ticket. </p>

<p>Does our educational system truly reflect what is needed in a career? </p>

<p>

@JefferyJung

I remember strange minor things about people, yet I forget the big events in my life.

</p>

<p>What minor qualities do you remember? </p>

<p>Speaking of impressions, I remember the first time I acquainted myself with that “her” to whom I’ve been continually referring in my essays. My first impression was that she was a jerk, because she associated herself closely with someone I despised. Wow. That first impression has come a long way (:. I also noted some unique physical qualities. Whoops, getting carried away here. I’m interested in what you remember. </p>

<p>And no, I don’t think that you’re taking away from my original post; I like discussions that span the whole nine yards.</p>

[JimboSteve]

<p>I’m concerned with personal integrity. Nations, societies, and the like are too large to interact with, but people are impossible to ignore. </p>

<p>What I mean by integrity is this: knowing what is right, and then following through with it. Sociopaths do not have the first part. Many people, it seems, do not have the second. I grew up thinking that everyone had both, and learned late and in an all-at-once sort of way that I was mistaken. </p>

<p>

Some examples that demonstrate lack of integrity:
[…]
4. Cursing

</p>

<p>I’m not sure why this would be a moral issue. What distinguishes curse words from other words that makes their utterance morally wrong? They can serve a powerful function in colloquial speech — when used sparingly — to make a point, to personalize a statement, or to emphasize an emotion. In excess, they can be annoying, and their function is diminished. In certain contexts, the feeling behind them is a disagreeable one, especially in the case of the standard meaning of f**k. But I see no reason why their use should be disallowed in general.</p>

<p>I’ve read some interesting studies, actually, about the mental distinctiveness of curse words. They’re very unique words that have a special place in the minds even of people who abstain from their use.<br>

Do you download music illegally?

</p>

<p>There are some very, very rare movies that I can’t find on amazon or ebay, and I’ve downloaded them, although their copyright owners no longer seem to care. What with Vevo, Spotify, Pandora, etc., illegal music downloading, even if not wrong, is unnecessary.</p>

[stressedouttt]

<p>oh wow. I really want to reply to so many things on this thread, but that would just make my post ridiculously long I’ll just mention a few things I guess.</p>

<p>

Is it painful to realize how many years have gone by, or painful to wonder what you could have done differently? Or is it bittersweet - you’re glad that it happened, but sad that it’s over, or sad that it could have gone differently? Or is it pleasant - you’re happy that it transpired?

</p>

<p>For happy things that happened? I suppose it’s sort of bittersweet. “Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.” <3</p>

<p>

The question that remains is why are we so mesmerized by time, space, and distance?

Because they limit our experience.

?</p>

<p>Are we scared of experience? Do we prefer reveling in our memories? Do we prefer the predictability of the sandbox we call memory and fear actual experience?

</p>

<p>It’s human nature to value things more when they become limited. Gemstones is a good example. So is colleges. Everyone always aims for the college they can just barely be accepted or rejected to.</p>

<p>

Do you download music illegally?

</p>

<p>Sometimes. My family (those who live on the Indian subcontinent) has been buying pirated movies for longer than I can remember. And I’ve always believed that art shouldn’t be sold to begin with, except for the minimum necessity for living. I don’t know, for some reason downloading music illegally and the like just doesn’t stir my conscience. I hate dishonesty, but is this dishonest? It seems like people let it happen, and everyone knows how easy it is. I wouldn’t buy pirated movies in the US, because it would be like lying. But in India? Everyone knows.</p>

<p>I’ll have to think more about this though. My answer isn’t satisfactory even to me.</p>