Deliberately Creating Memories
Leave the memories as they are, you just can’t duplicate something like that. ~ an old friend
Something’s been on my mind. On the one hand I love the internet and technology because it allows us to communicate across distances and accomplish our dreams in a way we would not have done before. But on the other hand, as the meme says, I miss my pre-internet brain.
I miss those days when we would wait forever for our favourite musician to release their new album, and line up at the store just to purchase it. Then we’d go home and listen to it on repeat for hours, probably with some good friends.
I also miss feeling like I could actually be OFF THE GRID when I traveled, or like I was escaping somewhere where nobody could find me. Now I don’t feel like I’ve gone very far because everyone is just a click away, or I could easily be tracked down because my flight and bank details are probably online somewhere, if anyone had to really go searching for me.
On the flip side, music is at our fingertips. Anything we want to listen to, we can get, how cool is that? Anything we want to learn, is right there. Now when we travel, we can update our friends and family in real-time and show them what we are experiencing. We can look up our childhood friend and reconnect with them.
But here’s a question –
When is the last time you looked back and thought, wow, that was such a great time when I watched that YouTube video on cats, I’ll remember that forever…
or
That was so much fun scrolling through Facebook for hours on end. I’ll remember it until the day I die.
Yeah…not quite the same as real life is it?
The difference is we created a lot more MEMORIES. And we valued things that took more effort to do as opposed to the instant gratification of today.
My fear is that I, and anyone else who is guilty of too many hours being distracted by Facebook/YouTube/Reddit/video games/name your vice here, (and I know there are many of us) will one day look back and realize all this time has passed us by and we don’t have any wonderful memories to look back on. At least not to the degree of what it used to be. I mean, aren’t memories part of what makes life so amazing?
I worry about our children who will grow up with their faces glued to an iPad or computer screen, and sure they will probably learn a lot, but I wonder if their childhoods will be as magical and full of memories as the pre-internet world.
I don’t know…just some thoughts. What do you think?
Other than that, my point is I think it’s important to be mindful of deliberately creating memories. Take that time to disconnect ourselves from the digital world, and live in the real world. Have a little picnic in the park with an old friend, or meet a new friend while hiking up a mountain. Because it would be so sad to look back and realize we could have had a richer experience.
I think it’s part of a the spiritual awakening you mentioned in an earlier post. I, too, have realized that if it’s true that my time is precious, then I am spending way to much of that precious time on piddly things, like FB (where too much drama lives) and email? While I feel this need to be connected, I settle too often for online connections (there is even an active minimalist group on FB that has been like my new tribe) instead of driving the half-hour to visit a person I’ve wanted to hang out with for a whole year. Kinda sad. Fueled by habit. It’s so much easier to substitute the quick and easy checking online than to seek out real, physical experiences. I realize those of us that lived in the time before the internet/cellphone is torn by what we know was better in many vs living in today’s “normal.” We long for normal to also be more authentic and worthy. How to strike a balance? Is “balanced” even optional? Do we fear losing our voice, our power to change the world around us if we give up addiction to being connected by today’s technology? Not only the fear of missing out, but a fear of being forgotten and ineffective?
Oh, my! Do forgive the errors in that reply that has grammar-nazis reeling. Too quick to hit the button without proof-reading!
Well, you are comparing scrolling through Facebook and watching cat videos to listening to a new album of your favorite artist. Of course it doesn’t come even close. It’s apples and oranges.
A better comparison would be of Facebook scrolling and chatting with people on the train during your morning commute. You are just as unlikely to remember what you saw on Facebook as what you talked about on the train last Thursday. But you will remember that interesting guy you met that rainy April morning, just like you will remember seeing for the first time the picture of your newborn niece on Facebook.
Also, I very fondly remember a night of raising chocobos in Final Fantasy VII, just like I remember reading The Hobbit on a camping trip with my family. And waiting for a new game to come out and then playing it with your friends for hours is pretty much the same as the experience of a new album.