THE FEAST OF STARLIGHT
"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." - Theodore Roethke
It begins when the sun sets into the west, taking away the scorching light from the Earthlings. Darkness lurks, the birds return to their nests and the animals look for shelter. Looking up in the sky, there's a white bulb with a powerful halo around it, farther are the small twinkling bright entities, the stars. There comes a time when the moon shies away and the darkness eventually overwhelms the night. It is at this, the darkest moments that, the starlight guides us just as it guides a ship. The star, in singularity, is just a tiny dot in the canvass of the universe. But united as stars, they're like the diamonds of the universe- adding to it's astounding enormity.
While all that glitters isn't gold, it sure does catch ones attention. Similarly in life, we have such diamonds- memories. Memories can either be cherish-able or perishable. More than the actual events of the memory, it's the essence of it that really dwells and persists under the umbrella of 'memory'. Being living beings, it is never as simple as one, two .. There's always a complex algorithm behind the actions and thoughts that we have. Memory is just time standing still. Cherish-able are the ones we wish to reoccur, inverse is true for perishable. We choose the memory in the former, it refuses to give a choice in the latter. At every stage in life, we create levels to satisfy ourselves. Ask a child to choose from the toys s/he has and you might probably end up uploading the entire episode on YouTube. Ask the same child the same things, a decade later- somehow the ending of Toy Story 3 comes into my mind. Quite an heart-warming moment, to part from the toys that span the entire childhood. That's the circle of life, everything that has a beginning has an end, The Matrix Revolutions really took it seriously. What was once ours will be of someone else. To stress it a little more, to create space for something- there must be vacuum. A specific time-space occupied by someone must make way for other things. This is how emotion makes use of our memories.
The memories are the 'cookies' of our lives, we pass through the doors that lead to a memory in the making. Emotions are the lightings in the room. The more happier or joyful the event, the brighter is the lighting. Joyful ones are brighter, available in a variety of colours. The warmth can melt the igloo. It's almost like the wondrous world of the famous boy wizard, Harry Potter, where the lamps light up as he walks by. Our emotions too, get affected in the same way. But by extending this cynical logic, the sorrowful events must have darkness, thus being invisible. Hence, we pile the painful experiences as one- dark. While we can spot the things near us, after closing our eyes- this increases the complexity. Imagine, see the objects near you once and close your eyes. What do you see? Able to at least point the location of the object? So this memory, though temporary, has associated itself with space. Coming back to the sorrow, it means that every memory that is now dark- had light on it at some point in time. Reflection of the object due to the light made it possible for us to see things in the first place. It was only until we closed our eyes that the darkness overwhelmed. Not trying to be Socrates but, this could then means that it is the perception of ours that dictates our emotions and thus, the memories. Perceive it as being painful, the first failure will always linger. Smile and deprive the world of a little pain.
Few years back one of the recent cult movies was released, Shutter Island, where the protagonist is shown to have stuck on an inescapable island- no matter the efforts, it can't be conquered. I personally believe that, we all live on our own shutter islands. There's always a place, a person we'd rather go back to at the end of the long day before the goodnight sleep than be alone. And after being on the expressway of our lives, there is always a singular moment or an event or a memory to return to; there's always a place in time, in our own space-time, in the corners of our minds that we'd escape to from the tangible present. Sometimes the present becomes too overwhelming, so much that the consciousness becomes a luxury. And just before the long night- the last goodbye, we experience the greatest flashback of our lifetime, we experience the Feast of Starlight.
While all that glitters isn't gold, it sure does catch ones attention. Similarly in life, we have such diamonds- memories. Memories can either be cherish-able or perishable. More than the actual events of the memory, it's the essence of it that really dwells and persists under the umbrella of 'memory'. Being living beings, it is never as simple as one, two .. There's always a complex algorithm behind the actions and thoughts that we have. Memory is just time standing still. Cherish-able are the ones we wish to reoccur, inverse is true for perishable. We choose the memory in the former, it refuses to give a choice in the latter. At every stage in life, we create levels to satisfy ourselves. Ask a child to choose from the toys s/he has and you might probably end up uploading the entire episode on YouTube. Ask the same child the same things, a decade later- somehow the ending of Toy Story 3 comes into my mind. Quite an heart-warming moment, to part from the toys that span the entire childhood. That's the circle of life, everything that has a beginning has an end, The Matrix Revolutions really took it seriously. What was once ours will be of someone else. To stress it a little more, to create space for something- there must be vacuum. A specific time-space occupied by someone must make way for other things. This is how emotion makes use of our memories.
The memories are the 'cookies' of our lives, we pass through the doors that lead to a memory in the making. Emotions are the lightings in the room. The more happier or joyful the event, the brighter is the lighting. Joyful ones are brighter, available in a variety of colours. The warmth can melt the igloo. It's almost like the wondrous world of the famous boy wizard, Harry Potter, where the lamps light up as he walks by. Our emotions too, get affected in the same way. But by extending this cynical logic, the sorrowful events must have darkness, thus being invisible. Hence, we pile the painful experiences as one- dark. While we can spot the things near us, after closing our eyes- this increases the complexity. Imagine, see the objects near you once and close your eyes. What do you see? Able to at least point the location of the object? So this memory, though temporary, has associated itself with space. Coming back to the sorrow, it means that every memory that is now dark- had light on it at some point in time. Reflection of the object due to the light made it possible for us to see things in the first place. It was only until we closed our eyes that the darkness overwhelmed. Not trying to be Socrates but, this could then means that it is the perception of ours that dictates our emotions and thus, the memories. Perceive it as being painful, the first failure will always linger. Smile and deprive the world of a little pain.
Few years back one of the recent cult movies was released, Shutter Island, where the protagonist is shown to have stuck on an inescapable island- no matter the efforts, it can't be conquered. I personally believe that, we all live on our own shutter islands. There's always a place, a person we'd rather go back to at the end of the long day before the goodnight sleep than be alone. And after being on the expressway of our lives, there is always a singular moment or an event or a memory to return to; there's always a place in time, in our own space-time, in the corners of our minds that we'd escape to from the tangible present. Sometimes the present becomes too overwhelming, so much that the consciousness becomes a luxury. And just before the long night- the last goodbye, we experience the greatest flashback of our lifetime, we experience the Feast of Starlight.
"Memory itself is an internal rumour." - George Santayana
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