Are we the sum of our past? Is it possible that our personality is just a collection of events that have slowly shaped us into the person we are right now? Like water tumbling over rocks, it slowly changes the shape of things. What happens though if you can't remember the things that built you into you? If I can't remember all the little things that turned me into the person I am now, do I really know who I am? Maybe the things I do or think are more influenced by the unremembered past than my current perception of the world around me.
I suppose one could argue that aren't defined by our past, but rather by our actions. That's all well and good, except that we hold to the past for so many things. Your ability to purchase things is dictated by your credit history. The jobs you're able to qualify for are determined by the jobs you've already done. Or at least claimed to have done on your resume. Criminals are branded by the crimes of their past, even if they will never do anything like that again. We are haunted by our past. Even if you can't or won't remember the past, it's likely that someone will remember it for you. Now with more and more of our private lives living on the internet, it's likely that our pasts will outlive us. Facebook potentially has the ability to track an entire lifetime. Granted they are doing it to make sure they know exactly how to market to you, but it's possible that one day someone will go back and study a Facebook-like timeline to try and better understand the life and times of someone who has yet to be famous.
There is a part of me that wishes I had the ability to travel back into my own memories. What would I see if I could go back to my grandmother's farm in Wisconsin circa 1985? How did that last conversation with a childhood friend really go before they left your life forever? I'm not looking to change things. What's done is done. Still it would be interesting to be able to revisit the moments in your past that your memory can't quite grasp onto. What did my grandfather's voice really sound like? What did the living room look like for my baby brother's first Christmas? Would seeing and hearing these memories change who I am now? Would they simply reinforce the beliefs I already hold onto?
We all carry around little time preservers in our pockets. They capture where we were, what we were doing, who we were with, what we ate (and how great it looked), and creates a sense of holding onto that moment in time. I don't know about you, but it's gotten to the point now where you don't take just one picture. You snap a dozen shots to find that one good one. That's the one that makes it. That's the one you share and the one you'll ultimately look back on and use as your memory anchor. My daughter doesn't know how to sit still, so for every picture I show to the world, there are many that are thrown aside and lost forever. Most of those pictures are of a blurry little baby with her eyes half closed, but still they are part of the moment I'm trying to save. Never mind the fact that the times I have pictures of something are when I had the foresight to pull out my phone to take a picture. There are times when I just want to experience the moment without trying to save it. In the moment I appreciate it more by just living rather than recording. It doesn't take long after though that I wonder if I'll remember it later. Is it just another moment that will fade into the background?
Maybe the past is just a sort of guide to our future. It helped us get here and generally points us in a direction. All of our history only serves to take us to the next place. It does make me wonder though how today will influence tomorrow.
