Nostalgia often sweeps over me with a peculiar sense of longing, as if I was mourning something that I never fully appreciated.
Perhaps this feeling is universal. The ability to recall memories and people to feel the ache of regret for not cherishing them more deeply. Sometimes, I wonder if those significant moments remain frozen in time, unchanged since I last inhabited them—a thought that may seem self-centered.
However, I don’t presume to possess everything around me or believe I’m exempt from the passage of time (like the “Ancient One”) – but the fact that changing life and time is a vector we do not consider much in our priorities somehow catches up to me in random days.
And our own perception of it isn’t as reliable as we might think, especially when faced with tangible reminders of the past.
For example, if I ever revisited my school and the old bench in my classroom still carried the carvings my friends and I etched on it twenty years ago, it would bring me comfort. But if the room now housed new seats, it would sting, a reminder of life’s inevitable changes, including those in my peers.
I’ve come to realize that this sort of introspective tendency has subtly influenced my relationships more than I intended. I hope it’s not about selfishness but a quest for stability amidst life’s continuous flow.
Even inanimate objects from my memories appear frozen in time, just like that mythical stone awaiting Lord Rama’s return. I wonder, did it droop in sorrow during his absence, unaware of its own fate? Who knows?
Yet, don’t we all yearn to be like Rama, to control our past (although he never really played the ‘God’), hence the varied narratives each time we revisit our memories?
Acknowledging that remembering these unchanged details soothes me, forgetting them is never an option.
As someone once said, the aim should be to find joy in the “now.” (One cannot help but be amazed by Master Oogway’s wisdom)
After all, we cannot play god, and once we start relying on memories too much it could be the endgame..