The Comfort of Precious Things
I am a master of the walk-away. I abandon possessions. I feel burdened by molecules. I would rather live through an experience and let the memory gradually fade than to cling to physical artifacts so that I can make feeble attempts to re-live the experience later.
I have tried not to be this way. I have tried to preserve and maintain, but I have little capacity to attach sentiment to physical objects. I forget.
The advice, "Don't forget where you came from?" is often a veiled attempt to hold you back. Forget where you came from; your past has no authority over your present.
It is hard to move forward when you are weighed down by monuments of past victory and defeat.
Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it? Those who obsess over history are eternally bound by it.
I am visiting my mother's home. On the walls of her bedroom is a photographic record of my life: a recount of my fractured and complicated family situation, representations of accomplishments; of days that I should remember but don't.
The real story was not captured in these posed portraits.
Portraits are often full of shit, stories told about us by strangers.
Maybe I feel this way because I take pictures and capture video, and I know how powerful the techniques of photography and cinematography are in shaping perception.
If I manage to live a long life, maybe I will wish I had more articles as touch points of my past. When I am not able to experience the people and places that matter in my life maybe I will wish I had taken more care.
For now I try to work; aware, but unencumbered by the past. My work can tell my story.
My path may lead to loneliness and isolation without the comfort of precious things. Or it may lead to freedom from the need to find comfort in things that can be taken away.
My history and destiny are both encoded in playlists like these, raw, unfiltered emotional energy, transmitted through sound and a few choice words.
Sounds like this loop through my mind long after the music stops.