Exactly Four Years Ago...

I was four years younger.

There's a pang of nostalgia tonight as I gingerly browse through my collected photos ever since I discovered the joys of a digital camera. I fondly recalled trips to the Getty Museum, beach outings where youthful men vigorously engaged in a game of shirt-less volley ball. Of course, in hindsight, it wasn't really cold enough to necessitate any "shirt-taking-offness." We probably just wanted to impress the ladies.

Picture yourself, dear reader, in a strange world where there's no such thing as memory or past. You wake up in the morning and every minute that passes by is like you're a newborn. The world is new, adventurous, yours for the seeking...and absolutely stupid. Oh yeah, and you're not wearing any clothes. Why are you clothesless? You've just never remembered to go shopping. In fact, you haven't remembered much of anything and you end up starving to death. The End.

Why this absurd scenario? Because little did you know, O reader, I have capitivated you with my literary talent and have successfully demonstrated to you the need for memory , even if at times, reminensce can prove quite painful. Events which occur never fade away into the past. They fight, grip at your soul, and many times, never leave. They formulate our souls and our identities. As I browse these photographs, I find myself saddened that forever (at least in my mind), I will be known as the young lad who suffered a bruised rib from a game of Ultimate Frisbee. The photograph makes me rub my side, then smile to myself as I think about just how thankful I am for my ribs. Now I shall go and drink a glass of milk.

It's haunting and comforting to know that we can still experience the past, today. The same feeling erupts when I think of the fact that some of those people really know me - they too can remember. It's like some Sci-Fi movie where a young aerospace pilot ventures off to a planet of crazed monkeys only to find himself empathetic to them, and perhaps in certain ways, the crazed monkeys are really more "human" than himself. Hollywood- you've heard it here first, I've got the copyrights.

Thankfully, monkeys are monkeys and we are not. It's not just my smooth skin, my undesire to yelp wildly and fling poo at things, but that I can remember. Not just things like remembering to do my laundry, eat food, or cut my hair (in which I am in desperate need). But that these past memories identify me in as much as I identify myself with them.

*NB: Addendum/Excursis- The death of YGLiDYM! has deprived the web-literary world for far too long, and in efforts to remedy the distraught souls of faithful readers, I (myself) have yet again, re-begun the daunting task of blogging. This and the previous post marks a new train of thought, a new thread of genius, a new... ... ... PROLITERATES OF THE WORLD, UNITE!