Our memory has some strange habits. We are good in remembering faces when we see one, a lot of us will forget the name attached to the face, but the face itself stays in our memory for a long time. Describing a face is much more difficult, just like describing an old house you lived in or your first car. When we try to recall a visual memory we often only see a part of that what was reality, we bind these parts together and assume that it is a good representation of that reality. When you see a picture of the car you once had, you recognize it immediately, you will also recognize it if you only see an outline, which suggests that the details are not necessary for your memory. This is why you also recognize an old friend from behind or in the distance.

When I look at old pictures I want to believe that I remember what I see and what was going on, but I just remember what I see on the picture, I remember seeing this before. When I see pictures from when I was really young, I remember only that I have seen the pictures before. This can be tricky, because you like to think that you remember other things in the picture to, like a couch, or a painting on the wall. Maybe you do remember, maybe you just remember it from that same picture, or from an other picture that hangs in the hallway of you parents depicting the same room.

What I wrote above, is just how I see it at this moment. I have read about it in the past, but I couldn’t tell you the names of the books or what was written in it in details. I stored some of that knowledge in my brain and that combined with my own thinking produces this. When we think about a subject and start to talk or write about it, we might use the same process as we do when we remember a face, or when we look at old pictures.

Imagine a car designer. The designer has seen hundreds of cars, and learned all kinds of visual and constructional rules. Do you think, that when they start designing a new car, that they calculate, and rationalize every line and shape? I don’t think so. I think that they stand knee deep in all the memories of cars and other shapes. From that memory mud, fumes rise up to impregnate the rational mind, I guess you can call this also inspiration. I think the same thing happens when you write a book, or tell a story from your past, it is all loosely connected with reality, an inspired feeling.

Today’s inspiration is from Day 1499.

Looking

through old picture albums

in my head

~

with a mind

that fades

stares

contracts

~

and leaves me

with a feeling

that I remember