Septemeber 2, 2023
If you forced a middle schooler to go through every essay and journal entry I've written on this website and write down a one word theme for each, they'd probably pick "Memory" every time. That wasn't exactly what I had planned. The first long essay I wrote specifically for this site was "Descent". I did actually go into that with a one word theme, but it wasn't "Memory". What I wanted to write about was "Technology". I wanted to find a way to write about technology that felt different from people on Twitter talking about how pointless the Metaverse is, how evil NFTs are, how dumb AI is, and so on. Technology has often felt like something I can observe but will always be separated from. A big part of that might come from the simple fact that the typical interface with technology in the 21st century is through screens, which by definition our windows that keep two different worlds separate. I think it's easy to see how that more personal point of departure might take me on a tour of my own memories -- rather than the more objective philosophizing about how technology affects us and changes that a better informed writer might do. Later on in approaching other subjects -- bands, countries, and malls -- I ended up talking about memory and the past again and again.
Perhaps all writing -- especially that of the narrative form -- necessarily has to wrestle with memory, but that doesn't mean it has to be about memory. So I'd like to challenge myself to write about something else next time. What will that be? I'm not sure yet. Will I talk about the present? Or the future? What is the opposite of memory? Amnesia? Prophecy?
I'm sure that in intentionally trying not the write about memory I'll just end up writing about it in a slightly different way. Still, I'd like to try. I'm not a big fan of doing the same thing over and over.