Marquez said somewhere- "its not important what you do in life but what you remember of what you did"
Those might not be exact words- I do not remember exactly. But my interpretation is something like that. I do not know whether this was prior to his senescent oral fixation phase or when he was more sane- which to say he actually never was. But then his insanity was so beautiful- who else can imagine a town losing its memory collectively or a war so surreal- like Asterix and the gauls whipping the Romans in Hemingway imagery of Civil War( what an oxymoron that!!), you almost forget its people killing each other and brothers in arms and dulce et decorum est seem all so weepy and whiny.
Anyways ..thats a perspective of a retired peripatetic who chooses to reflect I thought.How could things you do not be important in your life? They define the parameters that are you.
But......... try and remember things you did three years before this one. Try and imagine one week in your life then.What can you remember? Can you remember what your motivation was that week, which book you were reading?Did you have a fight? How did the hated monday merge into momentum of tuesday? Did you make a promise, can you remember one thing that was memorable so that you might remember it maybe five years hence?Was there any?How many such weeks pass away without anything to remember,in a listless ennui...an inertia to not make an effort to excel, to make it memorable.The days you got up, brushed your teeth, had a bath and went to work, chatted at work,read Doonesbury, did whatever work you had, came back, watched TV,thought the government sucks, sat at the PC checking mail, ate your dinner and and slept.How many can you count?
Perhaps that is what Marquez meant?! That we need to remember..to make a conscious effort to remember. But to also create experiences that we may remember. Childhood easily was adventurous enough. It had the growing pains, the closely spaced phases of transition from hyperaction to peer relations to rapid learning to introspection. There seems to be too long a phase somewhere later where nothing happens, or happens infrequently.
Part 2 of the Q:
How much of an effort do we make to remember?
Some cling to the past- it is to escape the insecurity of the present maybe.
Some maybe not.They act, act in the living present, heart within and Groucho Marx overhead.There is no Either/Or for them...its And And accumulations.This is the American way.Indians in the US are either more religious than folks back home, or they melt into the hoi polloi that is this country.Everyone is trying their best to survive, make money, give their kids a good future, working their asses out 5 days a week at Dunkin Donuts or Microsoft or Accenture, keying their systems to charcoal gray and business black-berry dreary 5am mornings, evening showers and breakfast bars, irritable bowels and lives run by PDAs ,weekend holiday traffic and 9 pm phone traffic, voicemail impersonalness and a call before you visit etiquette. Everyone- Iraqi Kurds to grasshopper tambrahms to greenback hungry Gults to frustrated Peruvians to the Filipino medical student is living this pan-neo-omni life( new all encompassing- thats the idea...pardon my inadequacies in English). They bring their culture pans and pots, their genes and diseases, their accents and intonations, their frustrations and aspirations to this supposed land of opportunity.And they become one of this culture of the developed world.
They wont remember.Life is too hectic to. They are reliving their childhood in a way. Each day is as much an adventure as it is mundane and cyclical- for they cannot drop out of it.There is no retirement. Vacations are scheduled, then you re enter.You are a runner, a kite runner chasing a thousand splendid things that exist till you consume them. You pretty much should have the stamina of the uberamerican Forrest Gump by now. Your legs are stronger than your glutamate circuits and hippocampi.
What do you have to remember anyways?
To conclude with another inexact quote( perhaps Rushdie... I don't remember exactly except that Dharav brought this up in a mail of his)
'life is what happens to you when you are looking elsewhere.'
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