Sometimes when I am by myself doing mundane things like unstacking the dishwasher or folding the laundry, my mind wanders off to strange and long forgotten territory that is locked away most of the time somewhere in my brain. I will randomly and unconsciously search way back into the farthest recesses of my memories, pulling out the most useless and pointless recalls ever. Suddenly, mid knicker folding, I am reliving an awkward conversation that I had with my boss 15 years ago, or thinking about some horrible guy that I was crushing on 30 years ago or rehashing an argument that I had with one of my sisters about something that seemed important at the time but now seems obviously irrelevant.
When I emerge from this 'unconscious recall' I often get to thinking about my make up as a person, I mean, does everyone do this kind of stupid thing? Is everyone pulling up random old shit from time to time, or is it just me? And is there any point to rifling back through the trivial memories and mistakes of old? I doubt it, especially since most of the shit that I drag back up is either pretty useless memorabilia or just stuff that I would have preferred to have just forgotten about anyway.
I must admit that often when I do think back, a lot of what I am recalling just makes me cringe. I cringe about how immature I was, or how clueless I was or how superficial I was. In fact I hardly ever have a memory of a moment when I was just being awesome or seriously cool. So does that mean that I have hardly ever been awesome or super cool or does it just mean that I am haunted by the dumb mistakes of my past? I am going with the latter on that one, but honestly neither option is particularly pleasing.
I am sure that there are some excellent medications on the market these days that can stop me from doing these 'random recalls', but I am holding out on the hope that this is just something that everyone does from time to time and that I am not three parts crazy. I really don't see any harm in doing it, I just find being human so very odd at times; I mean the stupid, stupid things that we fill our heads and time with, it's all so irrelevant and unimportant and yet we allow it to be so all encompassing and valid.
Memories are slippery little suckers for sure, they have a knack of insidiously sneaking up on you in those quiet moments and snatching up your full attention, forcing you to ponder and reminisce the unchangeable.
Barbra Streisand sang in The Way We Were "memories, may be beautiful and yet, what's to painful to remember we simply chose to forget." Meaning that most of the stuff that we do recall unconsciously when we are just daydreaming is pretty mundane because the really difficult and important stuff is buried down way deeper than that.
So maybe remembering the mundane stuff isn't that bad after all, I mean if we were rehashing the big stuff all the time, that's when we really would need to enlist the help of some good quality medications. Hmmm, maybe there is nothing wrong with reliving the small mistakes and minor mishaps, after all, the small ones are so much easier to deal with. If we gain nothing from these ponderings but a rough map of how far we have come, and what not to do in the future, well then it's probably not a bad thing to daydream our past shortcomings at all, it may even be an extremely cathartic thing to do.
When I emerge from this 'unconscious recall' I often get to thinking about my make up as a person, I mean, does everyone do this kind of stupid thing? Is everyone pulling up random old shit from time to time, or is it just me? And is there any point to rifling back through the trivial memories and mistakes of old? I doubt it, especially since most of the shit that I drag back up is either pretty useless memorabilia or just stuff that I would have preferred to have just forgotten about anyway.
I must admit that often when I do think back, a lot of what I am recalling just makes me cringe. I cringe about how immature I was, or how clueless I was or how superficial I was. In fact I hardly ever have a memory of a moment when I was just being awesome or seriously cool. So does that mean that I have hardly ever been awesome or super cool or does it just mean that I am haunted by the dumb mistakes of my past? I am going with the latter on that one, but honestly neither option is particularly pleasing.
I am sure that there are some excellent medications on the market these days that can stop me from doing these 'random recalls', but I am holding out on the hope that this is just something that everyone does from time to time and that I am not three parts crazy. I really don't see any harm in doing it, I just find being human so very odd at times; I mean the stupid, stupid things that we fill our heads and time with, it's all so irrelevant and unimportant and yet we allow it to be so all encompassing and valid.
Memories are slippery little suckers for sure, they have a knack of insidiously sneaking up on you in those quiet moments and snatching up your full attention, forcing you to ponder and reminisce the unchangeable.
Barbra Streisand sang in The Way We Were "memories, may be beautiful and yet, what's to painful to remember we simply chose to forget." Meaning that most of the stuff that we do recall unconsciously when we are just daydreaming is pretty mundane because the really difficult and important stuff is buried down way deeper than that.
So maybe remembering the mundane stuff isn't that bad after all, I mean if we were rehashing the big stuff all the time, that's when we really would need to enlist the help of some good quality medications. Hmmm, maybe there is nothing wrong with reliving the small mistakes and minor mishaps, after all, the small ones are so much easier to deal with. If we gain nothing from these ponderings but a rough map of how far we have come, and what not to do in the future, well then it's probably not a bad thing to daydream our past shortcomings at all, it may even be an extremely cathartic thing to do.
ARRIVAL
Release Date: 2016
Rating: M
Running Time: 116 mins
Adapted from the 1998 novella The Story of Your Life by Eric Heisserer and directed by Denis Villeneuve, Arrival delivers a deeply meaningful narrative that is definitely a must see experience for fans of quality sci-fi. Following in the footsteps of greats like Interstellar and Contact, Arrival has a level of sophistication and intelligence that allows it to directly ask and answer the big questions that would arise in a first contact experience.
When extraterrestrials mysteriously arrive on the Earth in their pod-shaped ships, but do not attempt to exit, everyone wants to know why they have come. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are employed to lead a research team into determining why the aliens have arrived and what it is that they want.
Adams and Renner are simply perfect together, and were very wise casting choices. Amy Adams has certainly hit her stride and doesn't seem to be faltering in any genre that she takes on; she really does just shine here.
It was so refreshing to see a first contact film address a meaningful interaction instead of going all gung-ho slaughter all aliens, which we unfortunately see so very often in these types of sci-fi stories. Not since Close Encounters of the Third Kind have we seen such a genuine interest to learn more about life other than our own portrayed in cinema, and Arrival offers so much more emotion and room for introspection that it just leaves you spinning when it is over.
FINAL SAY: If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?
4.5 Chili Peppers
Release Date: 2016
Rating: M
Running Time: 116 mins
Adapted from the 1998 novella The Story of Your Life by Eric Heisserer and directed by Denis Villeneuve, Arrival delivers a deeply meaningful narrative that is definitely a must see experience for fans of quality sci-fi. Following in the footsteps of greats like Interstellar and Contact, Arrival has a level of sophistication and intelligence that allows it to directly ask and answer the big questions that would arise in a first contact experience.
When extraterrestrials mysteriously arrive on the Earth in their pod-shaped ships, but do not attempt to exit, everyone wants to know why they have come. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are employed to lead a research team into determining why the aliens have arrived and what it is that they want.
Adams and Renner are simply perfect together, and were very wise casting choices. Amy Adams has certainly hit her stride and doesn't seem to be faltering in any genre that she takes on; she really does just shine here.
It was so refreshing to see a first contact film address a meaningful interaction instead of going all gung-ho slaughter all aliens, which we unfortunately see so very often in these types of sci-fi stories. Not since Close Encounters of the Third Kind have we seen such a genuine interest to learn more about life other than our own portrayed in cinema, and Arrival offers so much more emotion and room for introspection that it just leaves you spinning when it is over.
FINAL SAY: If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?
4.5 Chili Peppers
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