This is the last in my series
Of all my silly little childhood fancies, there's only one which I have retained till this day!What is memory?
I say this in regards to the series of art-pieces I have posted within the past week or so. Pages of Nostalgia was meant to be a series of collages, drawings and sketches that were inspired by specific memories from my childhood and past. And since this piece is the last, I suppose it is only prudent that I conclude with a little discussion on memory.
I suppose we can look at memory in terms of history as well. History is memory, public memory, and it is supposed to be real. But do we ever stop to think about history, who wrote it, for instance. Version of the Victors aside, history if you really come down to it, was written by a person. Now, what if - let's just say - this person were to have written history differently. What if he thought that the actual events were too boring and added in a little spice here and there to jazz things up. What if that had happened. Would it make history any less real? Would history then stop serving its purpose as a public memory? And then, if that happened, what would become of your roots? Would you be someone without a past? Someone whose identity was built upon, essentially nothing?
But then on the other hand, perhaps there is no such thing as a one, true memory. After all, even when we transpose incidents live say I were to write about something as, and when it happened to me, we would tend to leave out details. Forget stuff. Omit others. Sometimes we'd be tempted to skew things a little. And perhaps all this happened by accident. But as long as no one knows the difference, as long as no one can contest to it. Would it make your memory any less real?
Pages of Nostalgia are supposed to be part of my own memory. A memory of my childhood days. But at the same time, I cannot vouch for their accuracy. I cannot persist at their realness. Because at the end of the day it is a story. I story I wrote in my mind the first time I experienced it. A story I planned out as I scripted the draft. A story that was then translated into paper. But it is a story nonetheless.
I guess what I'm trying to say here, is that memory is a story. History is memory. And because none of us can relive memory, cannot go back to that particular point in time and include anything we may have unintentionally omitted - There are no single truths, but merely different versions of it.
PEACE OUT
