Life is Special

It all really goes by so quickly, doesn't it? Life is a blurry landscape we witness from the window of a speeding train, watching moments transform into days, weeks, months, and years. Sections of our lives fade into one another with the subtlest of changes, and the value of each section of time only grows in meaning and importance retrospectively. There is even psychological research suggesting that our sense of time is almost inextricably tied to our sense of self. Me then, me now. The same person, but also not. And not even in an 'I've grown and learned so much since six months ago' kind of way, but in a 'six months have gone by, and now I'm here' kind of way. We change purely through the passage of time, even if nothing really seems to happen. This phenomenon is terrifying in a very real sense, because, of course, the self is a transient thing that doesn't truly exist when you look a little closer - it is merely a construction of our individual imaginations that we can't help believing in; a grand myth we perpetually get swept up in. Yet delving into the reservoir of memories that belong to 'me' is the only real basis for my understanding of who I am now, when it comes down to it. Those memories aren't real: they aren't happening now, they won't happen again, and without the personal significance I place on them, they don't mean or matter much at all. I merely require this collective library of thoughts, emotions, and recollections of events in order to make any sense of the world and my existence in it whatsoever. Memories are tools with which we repeatedly dig up a lost sense of self, dust it off, and put it back on to remind ourselves of who and what we are. Like the conductor of a private orchestra without whose proper direction we would crumble into chaotic, eerily misdirected fragments of noise, the self serves to direct or conduct the chaos of the human position in the world so as to produce a moderately coherent - and at times beautiful - symphony.

All of this to say, we owe it to ourselves to cherish those memories of the moments in our lives where we feel most alive, most awake, most ablaze with the spark of consciousness lighted in us at birth. These are the moments, days, weeks, and hours we ought to draw upon each time we turn inwards to reconstruct that ever-so-fragile sense of self that keeps us moving forward. What is it about these particular memories that makes you feel alive and inspired each time you remember them? What was special about that time, about those people, about who you were back then? How do these feelings and recollections serve you now?

Life is special. Treasure it. Note the beauty in the mundane, because without a doubt what is mundane to you now will become an invaluable treasure at some later time. Live now as much as possible, because that is all there is. But write down or document the days of your life in some way so that whenever you lose sight of what has made your life beautiful and worth living, you will have proof to look back upon and be grateful for. Don't allow fleeting moments, thoughts and feelings to slip away into the realm of the forgotten and the non-existent. Cherish them, be grateful they happened, and continue to form those beautiful memories for as long as you live.