I've noticed recently that my brain is not exactly performing as well as I'd like it to. Just last night, for example, I was in a horrible mood and could think of no way of passing the evening nor reason to wake up in the morning. K put on Schubert's Death and the Maiden, and like magic, the music seemed to resonate at the exact emotional frequency that I was experiencing. And in a way that music rarely does anymore, it actually had an emotional impact on me and lifted me out of my mood and brought me to a somewhat better mood where I could finally rest and read a book.
Now, thinking about the experience last night, I cannot recall what was so great about the music. Conclusion: my brain has not encoded the memory of the music correctly. I cannot fathom the quality of the music at all. I can fathom the simplest of melodies that it had, but that melody (as recalled) does not have the same effect. My brain should be better than this: it should be able to transcribe the event in a way that should I want to recall it I could at least have a hint of what it had been like to have experienced it. But... nothing.
I just put the CD on again, and now it's clear. I can feel the texture of the music and re-experience why I thought it was so great and also remember why I thought it was so great yesterday. I may not be able to experience it in exactly the same way, but with the recording's help, at least I don't feel like it's completely lost to me.
Now that I think about it, aren't there a lot of other things in life that you're positive that you enjoyed while you were there, but for the life of you you can't remember why? Running is like that. I know that I love running, but when I'm not running I cannot remember why I love it, and so I do not go running as often as I might otherwise. Same with camping. Same with reading certain books. I could not remember why I liked Lolita so much until I re-read it, and of course I have ways of recalling specific reasons that I liked it, but there's no substance behind those reasons. Memory is a horrible friend. Doing is always better than remembering. And this is one reason why I may feel so much hatred towards people who are constantly documenting their lives for purposes of documentation. It's okay in moderation, but at a certain point the obsession with representation kills the original. And in this way my rather novel idea has turned into cliche. Carry on.
Kiruba Shankar is conducting a bunch of interviews with people, including me.
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