About Photographs and Memories

Post 321:

            As the sands of time keep slipping away, I get a little freaked out. I’ve always been in a hurry, though, so it’s no big surprise. Slow and steady wins the race never sat right; I’ve tried to adopt the methodology to no avail. Guess I’ve always had a burr under my saddle.

            So be it.

            If one thinks at all about the future (beyond the next meal) it can seem very daunting. Or not. Depends on the person, I suppose.

            Something I read and something I heard has me thinking about these things tonight—age, time, where we’re at…

            My dad made me laugh the other day when he said he’s done a lot and seen a lot of this life and this world and he still has no idea who killed Kennedy. It was a joke but there’s double truth in it. First, it is still hard to know certain things, despite wisdom and experience. Damn near impossible, in some instances. But at the same time, it feels like we should know.

            There’s faith and there’s evidence and I’ll burrow down the rabbit-hole of epistemology all the live long day, but this is simpler. I’m talking about the feeling that we should know something.

            What is that?

            It’s actually really childish. Who knows everything? Kids. Just ask them. They’ll tell you everything. Their certainty is ridiculous and healthy and appropriate and I say let them have a little of it because life has a way of strip-mining it away, tearing at all the scaffoldings we prop ourselves up with.

            We don’t know much. Maybe it would just be horrifically boring to understand things all the time, but hell, I’d take a one day trial run.

            I just finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s really pretty depressing and really has a lot to say about the nature of getting older and the moral responsibility that comes with it.

            I’m sure most people have read it. Pretty amazingly written. Though it’s almost as indulgent as the society it purports to rail against.

            It was never going to turn out well for Dorian. The guy had a giant selfie painted of himself. This is why taking pictures of oneself is weird and leads to Victorian-style tragedies along the lines of Dorian Gray. Being into yourself can turn Creepville really fast. There’s documentation and all that.

            So there’s one thing I know. I’ll build from there. Cheers and see you after.