Waltz With Bashir

I get stuck on the phenomenon of memory. It's more than a fascination, the conscious act of remembering has informed my entire person and how I view the world. How we remember, the dreamlike colors of the images that get stuck in our mind and most importantly of all, what we chose to remember are questions that I pearl over in my mind to the extent that living in the present is difficult.

And it's not just one's ability to remember or their personal account of "how it all happened" - what we remember shapes not only how we see ourselves and our identity in the present but how we move and conduct ourselves into the future (On a personal level as well as the macro level when talking about national or collective remembrance).

You may have already guessed, but this last point is a big deal to me. It's the crux of what I obsess about when something comes up that brings how and what we remember into question.

I think a part of the reason memory is so interesting to me is that the memories we have are something we paradoxically have no control over, and yet at the same time, the nature of our reflection (a force we control) on the present directly shapes how that moment or event looks to us in the future. It's crazy. I love it.

Watching Waltz with Bashir last night got me all fired up about this topic of remembering - especially because I have been really wrestling in a somewhat passive way, with the topic for the past month or so for some very personal reasons. Ideas. Ideas that get a little too jumbled for me if they are not forced out in some sort of semi-organized fashion. So that's what I am going to work on over the next little chunck of time - see if by organizing my thoughts, I can stop pearling over the act of remembering in some sort of detached way, but just live and remeber those moments of life. That's what I want, right?