Remember

It’s always rather strange what one remembers. Little things. Oh sure there are large all-important moments of our lives which we hold in our mental pocket for such times as to tell stories about ourselves. I am from this place, this country, this year I graduated from such and such school, I was at this place during this national moment, I worked here during this period, and so forth and so on. These are the details we choose to share, or not, with others upon meeting or upon getting to know one another more or even when romantically inclined to share more during a quiet moment of discussion and exchanges.

Rather it seems awfully strange the little things that stick in one’s mind, for seemingly no reason. They’re just there, sitting, percolating, reminding one of a time and a place and a moment and a space. They arrive from the back of the brain to the front part of our mind on occasion to stimulate some thought or to have been stimulated by some other thought or by some quandary of a connection from the every day life. They may lead to another thought or come from another thought or bring several thoughts forward from the back of the brain to the front just as it had arrived. Or there may be no connection to anything at all and they just are there, causing a remembrance of a time and a place and a moment and a space from a life which once was there but has now traveled far and away from that time and place.

So it was that I ventured on a mental journey of long ago yesterday from a simple act of simply sorting through a simple bin of overflowing materials for sorting and viewing and gawking and ultimately for the possible expressed purpose of purchase if one were so possibly inclined. And as I was sorting and viewing and gawking and thinking about collecting, I noticed something out of the proverbial corner of my proverbial eye, I noticed a familiar image from a simple time long ago in my youth which easily reminded me of a time and a place and the image flowed from a pocket in the back of my brain into an unbridled section of my frontal lobe to where I could remember a moment and consider what life was like then and there and what else could be forthcoming from this concept that has now placed itself into the front of my brain from where it came somewhere lodge in the back of my brain for these moments in time whereupon I might recollect and reference when a moment in the present life and present space would enjoy or at least uncontrollably ponder a thought which was brought back from the past to enliven the present to possibly alter the future.

The question still lingers. Why this concept from the past still lingers in my mind versus a similarly random thought that does not? For instance if I am reminded of a thought or a word or an image or a concept or a smell or a taste or a view of which I saw, why can I not recall the full episode perfectly or the next moment in time that assuredly followed that event and that concept and brought me forward to that next moment which assuredly happened and assuredly brought me to the many moments of which brought me to the next many moments of which brought me ultimately to the place of where I am today and where I am remembering and recollecting this specific image and thought and instance but of which I cannot remember the nascent moment that assuredly followed it or assuredly came before? Why is it that I can only recall and recollect this moment, this random moment, which assuredly has no meaning, or perhaps it does, but for the philosophical sense of argument for the discussion we are having at hand here, why would such a random moment in a random time in my past suddenly come forward from a place of where it was stored and remind me that I do have this moment of which I remember even though I have no sense of why I remember it versus the many other times and places and images and concepts and smells and tastes and events of which I could possibly remember because I assuredly lived through those events too and they assuredly happened too and I would think that at some place in the back of my brain those memories and recollections are still there somewhere but for all intents and purposes they are no longer in my mind and simply cannot be recalled despite the effort one might make if one were to make such an effort?

For instance, say that one has a memory of a time where one took a bite of an apple when one was of an early age and in the place of one’s home during an early chapter in one’s life. Now for some random reason that simple moment of a taste of that apple brought forward the recollection of a place at that table sitting where one was in the house of one’s life of an earlier time. And so this moment of this taste of this bite of this apple of this memory of this event is housed in one’s brain somewhere for an easy uncontrollable pavlovian response which comes forward from somewhere in the netherlands of the back of one’s brain and so it appears at a moment, a random moment, so that it is now in the forefront of one’s mind to comment on the current present moment in time for some random reason that only the molecules of one’s brain truly understands and for which it is possible there is no explanation but of which it is simply a random connection that which the brain has decided to make. But this still all belies the question at hand, it belies the question of which we are discussing with this here discussion and that is that one wonders why it would be that moment in time of that apple and that taste and that smell and that table would only provide a glimpse of that moment and space and time and place, and not, and not, the other times and places and tastes and smells and views and thoughts that occurred at the same time in the past for which brought us to the time f the apple or the time directly following the apple. At some point in our past we must have procured the apple from someplace. At some point in our past we assuredly finished the apple and placed it somewhere. But no matter how much we may struggle and strain and attempt to recollect those times of directly before we took that bite of that apple, we cannot for the life of us remember the moments before the bite of the apple so that we can remember from where we retrieved the apple or the nascent moments after the bite of the apple to where we had finished with the apple and something next occurred with it. Perhaps we threw the apple away; perhaps we tossed the apple across the room; perhaps we took the apple to another room; perhaps we didn’t do anything with said apple except place it on the table in front of us and someone else disposed of the apple. The inherent question is what did indeed happen to the apple because it assuredly is not here with us now in this present time and place of which we find ourselves. The apple is not here. The apple lies in the past somewhere and even though we can remember this one singular moment of the apple and its taste and its color and its concept and we remember taking the said bite of the apple, one does indeed wonder why one cannot recall the next moment after that said bite when it is possible we took several more bites of the apple or conceivably we did not and only took one more bite from the apple or possibly we did not take any further bites of the apple and still the question in our head persists what was the moment directly following this bite of the apple and what eventually became of the apple. Sure, undoubtedly, parts of the apple became part of us to where the apple energized and nourished our physical body so that we could continue to live further and with more health, but there assuredly were other parts of the apple that did not enter our being, the core, the seeds, the stem, we most likely did not devour those pieces of the apple so they must be out there in the world somewhere. No longer would we be able to find them.

But again that is not the question at hand. The question at hand is why we can recall the taste and feel and concept of the apple at that one moment in time in the history of our lives, but why we are unable to remember the moments before said time to where we can recollect from where the apple came and what brought us to the apple and what our intentions were before we took the bite of the apple, and additionally why we are unable to remember the direct moments following in which something next occurred to where the apple went next and we went next and why can we not remember those moments that are clearly moments we lived and moments in which life occurred but which for some random reason we can only remember said random moment but of which we cannot recall any of the previous or continuing moments in our life surrounding said moment. The randomness of that moment and the randomness of its adventure into the front of our brain and the question or whether we recall the next moment or the previous moment are all questions that simply have no rational answer unless they do and the rationality of them simply are beyond our comprehension or at least beyond our current comprehension and perhaps in the future they will mean something at another time when this moment comes from the back of our brain to the forefront so that it gives us a reason and a purpose for this random remembrance but not other random remembrances despite how hard we may try to recall other random remembrances but which are clearly and stubbornly withheld from either the back or the front of our brain and simply and annoyingly gone from our mind and never to be remembered nor recalled nor recollected nor entrusted by our current mind to examine and encounter the images and events of another random time because our brain apparently has a limit to how many random moments and events and places of which we can hold in the vastness yet not so vast, more appropriately limited space of our brain.

So here we are again with the multitude of multiple questions before us about why we can only remember this one moment of our history and not another nor another nor another and we are stuck only with this one moment that can come to the front of our brain from the back of our brain because for some unknown and random reason it is still in the back of our mind and still holds a place of seeming importance even though we cannot determine why it would have such a seeming importance to us neither in our history nor now in our present but perhaps it could in our future should we determine a new reason for why it would be recalled and not another nor another moment but it is here to be recalled at any time when we might need even though it is simply unknown even to us why it is there lodged in the back of our brain to be recalled at a moment of the present, even while we are randomly doing something completely and supposedly indifferent to anything else and most likely indifferent to that moment in time when we took that bite of that apple but which reminds us of that time and leaves us to remember that moment and reflect on that moment and consider that moment and its antecedent moments and subsequent moments and ponder why those moments are not recalled but said moment is recalled and what does all of this mean to us in our lives in the past and currently in the present and what will it mean to us in the future if anything. For if anything we are possibly all made up of random moments and thoughts and concepts and visuals in our life and not actually the bigger moments of which we describe to others about who we are and where we were and what we did during this national time of remembrance or where we were educated or what friends we had or how many siblings we have or where we were born, perhaps randomly in our mind’s proverbial eye we are made truly not of those supposed integral and defining moments but actually made up of these seeming inconsequential and random moments to which we have no reason to understand or comprehend or put together but which are there to be recalled and somehow could make sense on a larger scale if we had that framework with which to see their larger, more comprehensive, not so random purpose.