On the day of my fifth anniversary as Chief Executive of the ACT, I have been reflecting on the special moments over the last five years, and sharing some with the team. Then tonight, over dinner, where my son invited his friend to join us in eating homemade sushi, we talked about the nature of memories. How you can imagine them, due to hearing about them from others (memory is not reliable), and how they can be formed from things like the photos we take that form a ‘structure’ in our lives. It made me think of the concerts I have gone to at the O2 or Hammersmith Apollo, where friends and strangers were viewing their experience through a camera rather than ‘live’, shall we say. How with Apps like Snapchat and Instagram we share our lives and experiences through images.
As my son’s friend said, the actual experience is so much more valuable, and we debated whether we are losing that somehow in the eagerness to post photos to tell others what we have been doing.
We agreed that something I was doing today, and am continuing this evening as I write, and that my son’s friend is also focusing on, is to reflect on our memories, and not solely rely on the photographic memory we store in our iPhones etc.
In other words, what we can do, all of us, is to pause. Pause for a moment or ten, to recall our best memories. Recall when we were the happiest, the most fulfilled, the most satisfied with our achievements or our lot. And repeat. Have a schedule where we repeat those memories again and again. There is an alternative: we can go through our photos (no longer the album, as they would never fit!), going through the saved images of our life. The problem with that is that those photos won’t necessarily have captured the best moments you have experienced, and they won’t be complete. That would be impossible. But by taking out some time to reflect on what have been the most important experiences in our lives, we can hold on to them, regularly think about them, and continue to hold them dear over the years. Repetition is something the mind loves – so the more you reinforce something, the more you will believe in and remember it.
I would therefore encourage you all to take some time out. Reflect back over the last five (or however many – your choice) years, and remember. Remember the high points, the things you want to remember and cherish.
I was thrilled to be discussing this with young men who so easily could be ‘relaxing’ into the current culture of ‘photos without memories’. Thank you to Leo and Liam.
