On Memory, Cyberspace, and Serendipity
One day archaeology will switch terrains from the caves of South of France and the Russian Urals, to the gigantic servers of Microsoft and AOL.
One day, excavation will not be for bones and skin, but for words and images engraved on metal discs with binaries of 0/1.
I am always troubled by the notion of memory in age where it is so instantaneous and yet so transient.
We can capture the most minute and fleeting of events, down to a microsecond (make that millionth of a microsecond), and yet we can lose this complexly compressed piece of information in a second.
As fast as we captured it, just as fast we can lose it.
And our only resort is our biological memories.
Which are are not mechanical devices that encodes in binary language or in compressed formats.
Our memories are active agents that construct their own narratives. Some times we are an accomplice in this process, and some times we are just spectators, watching, literally viewing a series of visual and sonic material that seems so foreign and alien to us.
And that we have, little or no control over.
And some times in moments where certain states of mind trigger strange and unfathomable recollections of events and individuals that are no longer present (in any form, not even virtually) so vividly before our eyes.
And the content of this recollection shocks and surprises us.
For we don't remember things 'that way'.
I don't remember you 'that way'.
Long time ago, when I thought about every encounter I have with a man as a rehearsal for my biggest and finest performance, when I thought that if Mohammed does not want to come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed, when I thought that among the 3000 profiles on all those social networking websites, there has to be one profile that I can find interesting, when I thought that I could always relocate somewhere else and actually experience a meaningful relationship for once, when I was still 25 and had no idea that if I flinch, I am going to wake up and realize I am 30 and still here.
At that point in time, I came across one gentleman who I never talked about to anyone before.
He was so sweet, intelligent, fun and for once without any major cultural or social baggage. None that I can not handle anyway.
And we talked and talked and talked and he was just the perfect interlocutor.
It didn't hurt that he was pursuing his masters degree in Germany.
And he fell in love with my words and I fell in love with his brains, his sincerity and genuineness.
He even called me once from Germany and I promised to visit.
But amidst a sea, rather a hurricane, of change, I drifted away and he seemed to have drifted away too, and slowly I let my memory archive this 'event', and allowed my memory to practice its full agency in reconstructing this mnemonic narrative with little or no interference on my side.
And I flinched and woke up three years later, jaded, embittered and very out of touch with reality.
And one day when one's space feels crammed with objects and people, and yet the distance between oneself and the outside world feels immense, my gentleman logged online.
And his screen name gave me a jolt, it felt like something took hold of me and suddenly jostled me down memory pathways I though no longer existed.
The amusing bit is that, I was thinking about memory and cyberspace, not long ago, and I was wondering, what happens to all those memories that are generated every second across luminous screens and endless cables of fiber optics? Who is going to preserve them? How do we access them, long after they are erased from the metal discs that carry them?
My wondering came to an end.
My gentleman had no recollection of me or the events that my memory preserved or rather created.
He was still polite and we exchanged profiles and at one point in time it struck me.
I might have remembered certain facts that correspond to reality and I might have created a whole set of memories that are entirely fictitious.
And that realization not only scared me but made me feel incredibly lonely.
And after seeing his profile, it even scared me more.
Last time I saw his profile he was a sweet, cute young man, now he was an overtly muscular guy (almost all of his photo shots are at the gym) and last time I checked he was gay, now he is a bisexual, last time I checked he was looking for something different, now he was looking for lecherous masculine men.
Not only that, if they are not truly lecherous and truly masculine then it is a waste of time.
And I laughed.
Not only because this was a completely different person than the man I used to know, but what I found even more hysterical that I don't fit into either descriptions.
There is nothing lecherous about how I approach people and the last thing that I would be, is a masculine manly man.
Who is this person?
And is it possible that I have given my memory so much license to the extent of creating this entirely fictitious construct?
He wouldn't recognize me at all.
Even after pointing out indisputable facts about who he is.
Only when I started talking like I used to, did he remember.
It was my words that gave me away.
Without them I am unrecognisable. Invisible. Unseen.
And that thought in itself terrified me.
It filled me with absolute terror.
What if, for any reason, I lost my mastery over my words, is there nothing else to me but that?
What if I were monosyllabic with him, he wouldn't have remembered me?
And if this was not entirely the creation of my mind, how can one transform from a gay and interesting person to a bisexual and lecherous muscle dude?
Is this a tragedy that will be resolved by an Oedipal coup de grace, when I realize the horror of my action (in that case my memory) and gouge my eyes?
Or rather a biblical scene when I am trampled by a horse and see the light of God?
Or in the end, like Nina Simone says, its all just the imagination of one single woman?
I will think about that tomorrow, maybe then I will recreate an entirely different mnemonic construct and completely obliterate that one.
After all, tomorrow is another day.
One day, excavation will not be for bones and skin, but for words and images engraved on metal discs with binaries of 0/1.
I am always troubled by the notion of memory in age where it is so instantaneous and yet so transient.
We can capture the most minute and fleeting of events, down to a microsecond (make that millionth of a microsecond), and yet we can lose this complexly compressed piece of information in a second.
As fast as we captured it, just as fast we can lose it.
And our only resort is our biological memories.
Which are are not mechanical devices that encodes in binary language or in compressed formats.
Our memories are active agents that construct their own narratives. Some times we are an accomplice in this process, and some times we are just spectators, watching, literally viewing a series of visual and sonic material that seems so foreign and alien to us.
And that we have, little or no control over.
And some times in moments where certain states of mind trigger strange and unfathomable recollections of events and individuals that are no longer present (in any form, not even virtually) so vividly before our eyes.
And the content of this recollection shocks and surprises us.
For we don't remember things 'that way'.
I don't remember you 'that way'.
Long time ago, when I thought about every encounter I have with a man as a rehearsal for my biggest and finest performance, when I thought that if Mohammed does not want to come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed, when I thought that among the 3000 profiles on all those social networking websites, there has to be one profile that I can find interesting, when I thought that I could always relocate somewhere else and actually experience a meaningful relationship for once, when I was still 25 and had no idea that if I flinch, I am going to wake up and realize I am 30 and still here.
At that point in time, I came across one gentleman who I never talked about to anyone before.
He was so sweet, intelligent, fun and for once without any major cultural or social baggage. None that I can not handle anyway.
And we talked and talked and talked and he was just the perfect interlocutor.
It didn't hurt that he was pursuing his masters degree in Germany.
And he fell in love with my words and I fell in love with his brains, his sincerity and genuineness.
He even called me once from Germany and I promised to visit.
But amidst a sea, rather a hurricane, of change, I drifted away and he seemed to have drifted away too, and slowly I let my memory archive this 'event', and allowed my memory to practice its full agency in reconstructing this mnemonic narrative with little or no interference on my side.
And I flinched and woke up three years later, jaded, embittered and very out of touch with reality.
And one day when one's space feels crammed with objects and people, and yet the distance between oneself and the outside world feels immense, my gentleman logged online.
And his screen name gave me a jolt, it felt like something took hold of me and suddenly jostled me down memory pathways I though no longer existed.
The amusing bit is that, I was thinking about memory and cyberspace, not long ago, and I was wondering, what happens to all those memories that are generated every second across luminous screens and endless cables of fiber optics? Who is going to preserve them? How do we access them, long after they are erased from the metal discs that carry them?
My wondering came to an end.
My gentleman had no recollection of me or the events that my memory preserved or rather created.
He was still polite and we exchanged profiles and at one point in time it struck me.
I might have remembered certain facts that correspond to reality and I might have created a whole set of memories that are entirely fictitious.
And that realization not only scared me but made me feel incredibly lonely.
And after seeing his profile, it even scared me more.
Last time I saw his profile he was a sweet, cute young man, now he was an overtly muscular guy (almost all of his photo shots are at the gym) and last time I checked he was gay, now he is a bisexual, last time I checked he was looking for something different, now he was looking for lecherous masculine men.
Not only that, if they are not truly lecherous and truly masculine then it is a waste of time.
And I laughed.
Not only because this was a completely different person than the man I used to know, but what I found even more hysterical that I don't fit into either descriptions.
There is nothing lecherous about how I approach people and the last thing that I would be, is a masculine manly man.
Who is this person?
And is it possible that I have given my memory so much license to the extent of creating this entirely fictitious construct?
He wouldn't recognize me at all.
Even after pointing out indisputable facts about who he is.
Only when I started talking like I used to, did he remember.
It was my words that gave me away.
Without them I am unrecognisable. Invisible. Unseen.
And that thought in itself terrified me.
It filled me with absolute terror.
What if, for any reason, I lost my mastery over my words, is there nothing else to me but that?
What if I were monosyllabic with him, he wouldn't have remembered me?
And if this was not entirely the creation of my mind, how can one transform from a gay and interesting person to a bisexual and lecherous muscle dude?
Is this a tragedy that will be resolved by an Oedipal coup de grace, when I realize the horror of my action (in that case my memory) and gouge my eyes?
Or rather a biblical scene when I am trampled by a horse and see the light of God?
Or in the end, like Nina Simone says, its all just the imagination of one single woman?
I will think about that tomorrow, maybe then I will recreate an entirely different mnemonic construct and completely obliterate that one.
After all, tomorrow is another day.
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