(An existential reflection by ©Sal Godoij).
When we revisit an event from the past, only fragmented images of it come to mind. Others may share some of these images, but each person holds different pieces and interprets them differently. Nothing in the mind has texture or material substance, yet the physicality of the present still permeates the past. We may possess a house, furniture, papers, and other objects, but the images we retain of them exist only in the brain. What, then, are they? We call them memories. Memories resemble dreams, except that they carry a weight we can touch in the present. Memories are like a river carrying stones that may eventually help us cross it. We say we have proof that something happened: photographs, mementos, and other traces. Still, remembering places us in a dreamlike state, because the event itself is now beyond our reach.
Yet we want to relive the past. We become preoccupied with what has been, and so the question arises: can we recover those moments and return them to the present? No. Each present lasts only for its moment, and then it is gone. It is a breath, and already past. The past is held in the brain, connected and framed by emotion. A photograph, an ancient ruin, an object, or a letter may become one such frame. Although material things cannot restore the past, they give it another form: a different kind of presence. But if no material trace remains to support the claim that something happened, we are left to our own reflections. Each of us sees things differently. We view the past from an individual perspective; in that sense, the past is singular rather than plural. An exception occurs when leaders condition the masses to believe that events unfolded in a particular way. Memory then becomes collective. Leaders can even create a collective memory from almost nothing. An idea, for better or worse, can change entire nations.
And so we say that we remember vividly what happened on a certain date, in a certain place or season. But dreams, too, can be vivid. Can we bring such dreams into reality? No. Is the past, then, our true reality? And if so, what are we but the idea that something is happening; an idea we grasp only after the moment has already gone? Even as I write these words, the moment of writing passes. Life, too, is like this: a moment, a memento, held in the mind, but the moment has a meaning, a consequence. Therefore, meaning comes not from permanence alone but from value within lived experience and from consequences in the lives of others.
Does everything that happens outside the mind belong to us? No. External things can affect us even when they are not in our minds. Relationships, responsibilities, communities, and physical environments are not merely private mental constructions. Other people have their own reality, and ethical life depends on recognizing that reality. When we die, we take nothing with us, but we leave a lot: what we do not carry away may still have mattered deeply. Our actions influence others, and our lives leave consequences, memories, institutions, works, and changes in the world.
Here, then, is the paradox that troubles us most: strange as it may be, it is woven into life itself. We live in the present, yet we often begin to understand our lives only after what we have lived has passed; therefore, the moments we live become more precious, or more bitter, when we remember them.
