Expiration date? It’s a date on the lid of my Yoplait yogurt, it’s a date on the side of my milk carton, but did you ever image it to be a date on your dreams, a date on your life, a date to “use by the end of your life” or “sell by the time you are 30?”
I got this message tonight. I realized a goal I had set passed its expiration date, its expired, its lost. Can it be reinstated, can it be postponed, and can it just have a little more shelf life? It can’t, I’ve tried every which way to make it last, preserve it, refrigerate it, even give it some tender love and care!
Our dreams and hopes can’t help but be given expiration labels, times of purchase, times of sale, time of “it’s rotten, toss it in the trash,” but can we just postpone them, tuck them away, discontinue time and hope they’ll wait until we are ready for everything to align, for them to just pick back up with the original destine plan? I’m trying that now. Can I just freeze it?
I guess we all wish we could just freeze time, take back the purchase, take back the statement, take back when we opened it too soon, and take back the impulsive decisions.
I wish that today. Or I guess I do. But I had that craving to peel back the lid, see what was inside, destroy the shelf life, or at least test it’s expiration? Should we really put due dates on things, I mean I guess if they’re perishable, but aren’t our dreams and hopes just as perishable as Yoplait yogurt? I had this due date, to cut to the chase -December the first. I had this goal that was pre-planned, pre-dated with the package it was assigned. It was the expiration date. That date, or December the first, is nearing, and that shelf life is expiring, and the goal associated is so far from being met. So I guess my question is: Do I throw away the goal, the product, or do I postpone the date, postpone the shelf life, and perhaps take and see how long it will last, do I freeze it, and can I?
Can we postpone our dreams and goals; can we just hope that they’ll work out tomorrow, that they’ll last until tomorrow? This particular goal of mine, am I just setting myself up for salmonella?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Memory Lapse?
A memory. Isn’t it something that is compounded by various senses? You have your five senses of course; sight, taste, smell, touch, sound. A memory by definition is “the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience. The ability of the mind to store and recall past sensations, thoughts, knowledge, etc.”
Should these past sensations, as memory is defined, be in fact what shapes our memories, don’t we all experience sensations differently? How then is my memory the same as yours?
With this in mind, we as a community base much of our daily actions upon our memories, don’t we? I mean, we reflect on what happened, of course I mean “what happened” based upon our memories. However if our senses are what primarily define our memories, how then do we know if my memory is “more” correct than your memory. I see things you may have overlooked, I taste flavors that you may have not tasted, I smell the ocean in the air, when you may have smelled the leaves blowing with the wind, I touch and feel the grains of a board and remember that sensation alone, and finally I hear the child’s voice, while you may have heard the mother’s discerning reply. How then do we collectively remember the same memories? We can’t and we don’t. We “hang” onto what stood out the most, and then form our memory around those relations we made.
I come upon this thought while recounting some family photos. I recently made a trip home to Rhode Island to visit family. We thumbed through s hodgepodge of photos, some of which I could remember and some of which I was too young to. Those that I do remember are based upon senses. I’d like to deviate for just a moment from this topic of senses as they relate to the building of our memories and move to photos. Pictures, photography, are a funny thing. I’m sure you’ve taken a look at some photo your parent or friend has hanging around and you think you remember that moment when it was taken, but do you, or do you just rehearse those colors, hues, and called out points in the picture and then memorize them so much that you say to yourself, “I remember that?” Is this picture just a tangible thing, or is it really a representation of a memory you have? Certainly seeing this picture that you couldn’t have remembered without it, suddenly stirs your memory and makes you “see” and recount the memory differently. Suddenly the memory you had of that time erases and is replaced with this picture. Is that fair? Have all that you held on to in your mind, the senses, vanished and been replaced with those specifics in the picture? It’s just like reading a book. You paint the picture of the activities being had in the book through the help of the author’s prose, but after you’ve constructed this entire world in your mind and then go see the movie….aha! Your initial memory is erased and replaced with what is being shown to you. Is that fair?
I swear I sat down to write this based upon the observation I had that I was beginning to lapse into a decision based upon a memory I have. Furthermore, this memory I have that seems to be haunting my everyday, is one that may not be what actually happened. I mean, to put it quite simply – maybe it was hailing golf balls that day, but I remember only the fire we had and the wine we drank. It’s that kind of thing. But on the same token, we all remember facts the same way – they are facts after all, and they can’t be remembered in one way on another but in the same way. Perhaps it’s the way we recall these facts – I remember (there it is) how I learned how to divide: Math class, on an over-head projector. But I still know the facts of how to divide any equation. Could this be the same for other memories that aren’t as matter of FACT? I don’t believe that is the case. How then can we separate our sense from memories and derive at pure facts? How then do we know to turn our memories into facts or senses/feelings?
This memory that’s “haunting” my day to day… well, I guess we can move so far away from what happened, and begin to formulate our memories on the most poignant points of that occasion. What if there were serious things we aren’t recounting, serious points that occurred that we totally overlooked, or more importantly didn’t file into what is now our memory? I’m beginning to think that this memory I have, of well let’s just say “rainbows and butterflies” was totally just a huge hailstorm? What then, do I search in haste for a photo of that memory so I can start to see the stormy sky that the photo captured?
I derive at this final point – our memories CAPTURE specific senses, just as a picture can only possibly capture only that which fits within the camera’s lens. But what then happens to all that surround that lens, that amount of room your memory captures? What happens to those variables? They disappear into the past and are totally and completely forgotten…. Or are they? Perhaps those variables are captured in the memory of the person sitting right next to you?!
Should these past sensations, as memory is defined, be in fact what shapes our memories, don’t we all experience sensations differently? How then is my memory the same as yours?
With this in mind, we as a community base much of our daily actions upon our memories, don’t we? I mean, we reflect on what happened, of course I mean “what happened” based upon our memories. However if our senses are what primarily define our memories, how then do we know if my memory is “more” correct than your memory. I see things you may have overlooked, I taste flavors that you may have not tasted, I smell the ocean in the air, when you may have smelled the leaves blowing with the wind, I touch and feel the grains of a board and remember that sensation alone, and finally I hear the child’s voice, while you may have heard the mother’s discerning reply. How then do we collectively remember the same memories? We can’t and we don’t. We “hang” onto what stood out the most, and then form our memory around those relations we made.
I come upon this thought while recounting some family photos. I recently made a trip home to Rhode Island to visit family. We thumbed through s hodgepodge of photos, some of which I could remember and some of which I was too young to. Those that I do remember are based upon senses. I’d like to deviate for just a moment from this topic of senses as they relate to the building of our memories and move to photos. Pictures, photography, are a funny thing. I’m sure you’ve taken a look at some photo your parent or friend has hanging around and you think you remember that moment when it was taken, but do you, or do you just rehearse those colors, hues, and called out points in the picture and then memorize them so much that you say to yourself, “I remember that?” Is this picture just a tangible thing, or is it really a representation of a memory you have? Certainly seeing this picture that you couldn’t have remembered without it, suddenly stirs your memory and makes you “see” and recount the memory differently. Suddenly the memory you had of that time erases and is replaced with this picture. Is that fair? Have all that you held on to in your mind, the senses, vanished and been replaced with those specifics in the picture? It’s just like reading a book. You paint the picture of the activities being had in the book through the help of the author’s prose, but after you’ve constructed this entire world in your mind and then go see the movie….aha! Your initial memory is erased and replaced with what is being shown to you. Is that fair?
I swear I sat down to write this based upon the observation I had that I was beginning to lapse into a decision based upon a memory I have. Furthermore, this memory I have that seems to be haunting my everyday, is one that may not be what actually happened. I mean, to put it quite simply – maybe it was hailing golf balls that day, but I remember only the fire we had and the wine we drank. It’s that kind of thing. But on the same token, we all remember facts the same way – they are facts after all, and they can’t be remembered in one way on another but in the same way. Perhaps it’s the way we recall these facts – I remember (there it is) how I learned how to divide: Math class, on an over-head projector. But I still know the facts of how to divide any equation. Could this be the same for other memories that aren’t as matter of FACT? I don’t believe that is the case. How then can we separate our sense from memories and derive at pure facts? How then do we know to turn our memories into facts or senses/feelings?
This memory that’s “haunting” my day to day… well, I guess we can move so far away from what happened, and begin to formulate our memories on the most poignant points of that occasion. What if there were serious things we aren’t recounting, serious points that occurred that we totally overlooked, or more importantly didn’t file into what is now our memory? I’m beginning to think that this memory I have, of well let’s just say “rainbows and butterflies” was totally just a huge hailstorm? What then, do I search in haste for a photo of that memory so I can start to see the stormy sky that the photo captured?
I derive at this final point – our memories CAPTURE specific senses, just as a picture can only possibly capture only that which fits within the camera’s lens. But what then happens to all that surround that lens, that amount of room your memory captures? What happens to those variables? They disappear into the past and are totally and completely forgotten…. Or are they? Perhaps those variables are captured in the memory of the person sitting right next to you?!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
“How far do our feelings take their colour from the dive underground? I mean, what is the reality of any feeling?” - Virginia Woolf
Feelings: What are they, are they real, where do they come from and where in the realm of space do they exist. We proclaim all of the time how we are feeling and what we feel, but aren’t feelings just as intangible as trust, faith, love and God?
I came to this quote probably about 5 or 6 years ago while studying Virginia Woolf in a Women’s Literature class in college. The tone of her prose is definitely one of those that can be classified as glum and with no encouraging ends to the means. That doesn’t mean it was not incredibly satisfying to the mind and completely filled with metaphors of which you just want to sit and detangle and mull over, aligning the ways in which you feel. Most recently I finished a book that had this very quote tucked into one of the author’s sentences as a way to, in his words, capture all that which he was trying to express.
I sit here running those two sentences over and over through my head trying to really unwrap them. The way we act out on our feelings, express our feeling, expose our feelings, and withhold our feelings- they all come from something. This something could have been an action, a reaction, or even a lack of action that drove us to take a plunge of sorts and arrive at some strong feeling. A feeling that we held with such importance, such immediate importance, a feeling that we needed to express, scream out loud, call for attention, or even retire into a world of depression and isolation.
Sure, I’ve been there and so have you. You have felt something so deep and so enjoyable or so painful that you can’t begin to believe the feeling will ever pass. You are consumed with feeling. At some point however the feeling passes, it dissipates into thin air and is no longer there, it seems to have just marched away alongside the tick of a clock. Did it ever exist, and if it did where is it now. After all, existence is to be present and accountable.
But when the feeling passes, when we come out of the “underground” as Woolf calls it, how much of those feelings come with us? Do you remember all of them? Do you remember the pain or the joy that you felt in either that fleeting moment or painfully long period of time? After all, you’ve come up from the underground, and in doing so you’ve shed the shapes, colours, and triggers for which the feeling was. So when we ask, “how are you feeling or what are you feeling,” are we trying to dig up something that really isn’t there, doesn’t exist and is just as intangible as love, faith, trust, and God?
So my trip-up to all of this is: should you act on feelings if they really aren’t a guaranteed and lasting thing? I guess it could apply to all other intangible things in life. Do you act on love and faith and trust? You invest in stocks, you invest in your job, and you invest in real estate. These are tangible things that you can measure, see, watch, develop and grow. Why do we invest in those that can not be tracked, measured and accounted for? Those are the most difficult to subscribe to and most definitely the most debated, the root to which all of our personal and sometimes global problems stem from and furthermore they are the things that most haunt our present and derail our future. So is there really any good time to expose our feelings, act on our feelings, and therefore act on impulse?
I can tell you one thing. Some of my most enjoyable moments and memories have happened because of impulse and fleeting feelings while some of my biggest mistakes and most hurtful decisions have likewise come from impulsive feelings. What is most important and do these two extremities balance the other one out?
I came to this quote probably about 5 or 6 years ago while studying Virginia Woolf in a Women’s Literature class in college. The tone of her prose is definitely one of those that can be classified as glum and with no encouraging ends to the means. That doesn’t mean it was not incredibly satisfying to the mind and completely filled with metaphors of which you just want to sit and detangle and mull over, aligning the ways in which you feel. Most recently I finished a book that had this very quote tucked into one of the author’s sentences as a way to, in his words, capture all that which he was trying to express.
I sit here running those two sentences over and over through my head trying to really unwrap them. The way we act out on our feelings, express our feeling, expose our feelings, and withhold our feelings- they all come from something. This something could have been an action, a reaction, or even a lack of action that drove us to take a plunge of sorts and arrive at some strong feeling. A feeling that we held with such importance, such immediate importance, a feeling that we needed to express, scream out loud, call for attention, or even retire into a world of depression and isolation.
Sure, I’ve been there and so have you. You have felt something so deep and so enjoyable or so painful that you can’t begin to believe the feeling will ever pass. You are consumed with feeling. At some point however the feeling passes, it dissipates into thin air and is no longer there, it seems to have just marched away alongside the tick of a clock. Did it ever exist, and if it did where is it now. After all, existence is to be present and accountable.
But when the feeling passes, when we come out of the “underground” as Woolf calls it, how much of those feelings come with us? Do you remember all of them? Do you remember the pain or the joy that you felt in either that fleeting moment or painfully long period of time? After all, you’ve come up from the underground, and in doing so you’ve shed the shapes, colours, and triggers for which the feeling was. So when we ask, “how are you feeling or what are you feeling,” are we trying to dig up something that really isn’t there, doesn’t exist and is just as intangible as love, faith, trust, and God?
So my trip-up to all of this is: should you act on feelings if they really aren’t a guaranteed and lasting thing? I guess it could apply to all other intangible things in life. Do you act on love and faith and trust? You invest in stocks, you invest in your job, and you invest in real estate. These are tangible things that you can measure, see, watch, develop and grow. Why do we invest in those that can not be tracked, measured and accounted for? Those are the most difficult to subscribe to and most definitely the most debated, the root to which all of our personal and sometimes global problems stem from and furthermore they are the things that most haunt our present and derail our future. So is there really any good time to expose our feelings, act on our feelings, and therefore act on impulse?
I can tell you one thing. Some of my most enjoyable moments and memories have happened because of impulse and fleeting feelings while some of my biggest mistakes and most hurtful decisions have likewise come from impulsive feelings. What is most important and do these two extremities balance the other one out?
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Know Your Way Out Before You Get In!
I guess the situation comes to all of us now and again. We are given, or see the opportunity to invest, dive in full throttle with zero plans on how we’ll make it out should the investment not pan out. So how do you put both feet in, and still have one foot out? This isn’t a game of Twister, this is about maintaining your security and self-preservation.
We all know that when we aim to reach a certain self-acclaimed goal, we charge through the starting line in full speed. We don’t look in the peripheral, we don’t watch our components gaining speed, and we certainly pay no notice to the notion that this may not work and the potential for injury may lie ahead. We run, then we walk, then we crawl, and then, quite frequently we stop. We haven’t planned a way out, we just give up. So is there a way to get the best out of that race, and bow out with just as much dignity and grace as though you’ve won the race?
I’m posed with this question now. I keep having that sentence go through my head: “Know your way out before you get in.” I know its wise to have a plan B, but I feel like plan A doesn’t have a shot in hell if you keep thinking about being able to lean back on plan B. Are we really putting the extra sweat, the extra steam, the extra push into plan A when we’ve got the “way out” or the plan B all set to go?
I’m coming towards what seems to be yet another cross-road in my life. I am toying around with the investment now. To keep it vague: I can’t discern whether or not I should put it all in and know there won’t be a great return, and already know that I’ll most likely be falling back to plan B, or do I put it all in and give plan A the chance? What if what you think you want and need, are in fact not the things you want and need, and you’ve only yet to discover what those are? What if what you want and need is just one more left turn ahead? Should you stop at the red light before and shut the car off, or do you just keep driving, following your gut or whatever is leading you, and hope that left turn marked “destination/goal” is just moments, days, or months ahead?
Speaking of driving; you know when you are looking for your destination and all the signs and landmarks along the way just don’t seem to match where you’re trying to get to? You get annoyed, discouraged, and even sometimes turn around. Dare you should ask for directions, get another opinion and potentially reroute your plan, admit mistake and shame your dignity! The signs and landmarks along the way are foreign, they won’t be familiar, they won’t resemble those of which you’ve seen before, because you’re going somewhere new, you’re trying to make this go; you’re trying to make plan A work!
So when the landscape, the signs and the landmarks all don’t make sense and don’t seem familiar, keep on going and soon enough, if you stay the course, you will make it to the sign that will tell you “50 miles to your destination/goal.” Its there, when you see the goal ahead, you see the finish line and you give that last 50 minutes every single ounce of strength you have and you forget about plan B and make plan A!
Heck, fate has a way of dealing the cards we’ll have to just make do with. Perhaps you weren’t meant to get your plan A, perhaps you hit traffic, slowed down, got discouraged, and called it off, or perhaps you crashed- you burnt out and totaled the plan, or perhaps you broke down- your battery just gave up and you exhausted every last bit of energy. Whichever it may have been, you’ve got to decide if you’re going to have faith and follow your gut, trust your directions, and trust what you’ve been told and what you believe to be ahead. If you can’t see that finish line, if you can’t make it to the sign that tells you you are just 50 miles away from your destination, then I guess you had better make sure that plan B is ready to go!
But… and there is always a “but,” perhaps you better know your roadside assistance, and turn to them when you blow your tire, or when your battery fails, maybe they’re the one who has got your parachute all set to go before you have to give up plan A. And hell, if both plans fail, use plan A/B, it will help soften the blow!
We all know that when we aim to reach a certain self-acclaimed goal, we charge through the starting line in full speed. We don’t look in the peripheral, we don’t watch our components gaining speed, and we certainly pay no notice to the notion that this may not work and the potential for injury may lie ahead. We run, then we walk, then we crawl, and then, quite frequently we stop. We haven’t planned a way out, we just give up. So is there a way to get the best out of that race, and bow out with just as much dignity and grace as though you’ve won the race?
I’m posed with this question now. I keep having that sentence go through my head: “Know your way out before you get in.” I know its wise to have a plan B, but I feel like plan A doesn’t have a shot in hell if you keep thinking about being able to lean back on plan B. Are we really putting the extra sweat, the extra steam, the extra push into plan A when we’ve got the “way out” or the plan B all set to go?
I’m coming towards what seems to be yet another cross-road in my life. I am toying around with the investment now. To keep it vague: I can’t discern whether or not I should put it all in and know there won’t be a great return, and already know that I’ll most likely be falling back to plan B, or do I put it all in and give plan A the chance? What if what you think you want and need, are in fact not the things you want and need, and you’ve only yet to discover what those are? What if what you want and need is just one more left turn ahead? Should you stop at the red light before and shut the car off, or do you just keep driving, following your gut or whatever is leading you, and hope that left turn marked “destination/goal” is just moments, days, or months ahead?
Speaking of driving; you know when you are looking for your destination and all the signs and landmarks along the way just don’t seem to match where you’re trying to get to? You get annoyed, discouraged, and even sometimes turn around. Dare you should ask for directions, get another opinion and potentially reroute your plan, admit mistake and shame your dignity! The signs and landmarks along the way are foreign, they won’t be familiar, they won’t resemble those of which you’ve seen before, because you’re going somewhere new, you’re trying to make this go; you’re trying to make plan A work!
So when the landscape, the signs and the landmarks all don’t make sense and don’t seem familiar, keep on going and soon enough, if you stay the course, you will make it to the sign that will tell you “50 miles to your destination/goal.” Its there, when you see the goal ahead, you see the finish line and you give that last 50 minutes every single ounce of strength you have and you forget about plan B and make plan A!
Heck, fate has a way of dealing the cards we’ll have to just make do with. Perhaps you weren’t meant to get your plan A, perhaps you hit traffic, slowed down, got discouraged, and called it off, or perhaps you crashed- you burnt out and totaled the plan, or perhaps you broke down- your battery just gave up and you exhausted every last bit of energy. Whichever it may have been, you’ve got to decide if you’re going to have faith and follow your gut, trust your directions, and trust what you’ve been told and what you believe to be ahead. If you can’t see that finish line, if you can’t make it to the sign that tells you you are just 50 miles away from your destination, then I guess you had better make sure that plan B is ready to go!
But… and there is always a “but,” perhaps you better know your roadside assistance, and turn to them when you blow your tire, or when your battery fails, maybe they’re the one who has got your parachute all set to go before you have to give up plan A. And hell, if both plans fail, use plan A/B, it will help soften the blow!
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