I'd like to announce that I'll be republishing all my past composition work from all my other websites to this blog.
Every two days a new piece will be published. My live posts will continue, don't worry. The first piece will be Ripples, a short story that I consider one of my best, from grade eleven. I wrote it shortly after I got back from China. It is about... well, that's up to you to decide. It's about anything really, anything that affects us.
After that, there will be poems, stories, compositions about history, humans, etc. Anything at all.
Cheers, I hope you enjoy it if you're reading this.
All the stories can be found at this moment on my Tumblr (click the link in the top bar).
Monday, November 4, 2013
How the Past Drives our Future
Today I look out my window at snow covered mountains, only five kilometres away. They are stunningly beautiful. I can't say that's only because they have snow on them, although that is certainly part of it.
It is because it reminds me of a place in the past that I have been before. Perhaps it wasn't even significant. However, it is just that: significant. Everything is, in my opinion.
These snowing mountains drive me back to elementary school when I was just learning to ski at Manning Park. Just seeing snow-covered mountains this close reminds me of it, every little thing: the smell, the temperature of the air, how tired I was, who I was with. This drives me to continue.
Although it seems strange, I try to recreate my past in a better way than I already remember it. Skiing at Manning Park Resort gives me blasts from the past like nothing else, because I've spent every winter of my life there since I could start remembering winter. The odd thing is that it doesn't remind me of only that particular place.
In 2012, I biked around Stanley Park and False Creek with my then girlfriend. From that point on, I do not only remember being on a date with there when I bike around the park, I remember everything about the relationship (including why I'm glad that it's over). I'm going somewhere with this, I promise.
My past gives me something to strive for, something to reexperience or perhaps replace. I feel like my head is a computer program, and running the same scripts replaces the old iteration of them. I want to go back to Kauai to replace the memories that are slightly flawed and the problems that were going on in my life at the time. Yes, I wish to turn my back on the past, but I want to hold onto certain components of it.
I have yet to meet someone who is attempting the same thing. I went on a trip with my best friend in July to Oregon, partially because Oregon is beautiful, but also because last time I had travelled to Oregon, I had either been eleven years old, or I had a girlfriend who I would do anything to forget about.
We set off bright and early on a Wednesday, as I had a week off school. First order of business: Museum of Flight, Seattle. Last time I was here... girlfriend. Not with her, but it's a place I want to remember without having to remember her. I'm strange, yes. We then got in the car and drove to Astoria, which I had done only ten months before. But I was replacing lots of memories. When we arrived in Fort Stevens State Park, I was flooded with good memories, since I hadn't stayed here since I was eleven. Those memories can stay, but I also have it fresh in my memory now. When visiting the Peter Iredale Shipwreck, I even replaced the photos from when I had a girlfriend with nearly identical photos. Certain things stay in my mind from the trip a year ago, but most have been replaced by this more recent trip.
That trip represented a release from childhood, I could travel on my own accord. I was over seven hundred kilometres from home. This replaced the memories of going just where my parents organized.
Today I am going to Biology to replace the flawed knowledge of the genome that we were fed in grade eleven, which is a perfect example of a practical application of this process. I'll be replacing the memories of that class, including the harassment I endured in that room.
Maybe it'll all work out, maybe I'll be able to replace what I remember with great things I love.
It is because it reminds me of a place in the past that I have been before. Perhaps it wasn't even significant. However, it is just that: significant. Everything is, in my opinion.
These snowing mountains drive me back to elementary school when I was just learning to ski at Manning Park. Just seeing snow-covered mountains this close reminds me of it, every little thing: the smell, the temperature of the air, how tired I was, who I was with. This drives me to continue.
Although it seems strange, I try to recreate my past in a better way than I already remember it. Skiing at Manning Park Resort gives me blasts from the past like nothing else, because I've spent every winter of my life there since I could start remembering winter. The odd thing is that it doesn't remind me of only that particular place.
In 2012, I biked around Stanley Park and False Creek with my then girlfriend. From that point on, I do not only remember being on a date with there when I bike around the park, I remember everything about the relationship (including why I'm glad that it's over). I'm going somewhere with this, I promise.
My past gives me something to strive for, something to reexperience or perhaps replace. I feel like my head is a computer program, and running the same scripts replaces the old iteration of them. I want to go back to Kauai to replace the memories that are slightly flawed and the problems that were going on in my life at the time. Yes, I wish to turn my back on the past, but I want to hold onto certain components of it.
I have yet to meet someone who is attempting the same thing. I went on a trip with my best friend in July to Oregon, partially because Oregon is beautiful, but also because last time I had travelled to Oregon, I had either been eleven years old, or I had a girlfriend who I would do anything to forget about.
We set off bright and early on a Wednesday, as I had a week off school. First order of business: Museum of Flight, Seattle. Last time I was here... girlfriend. Not with her, but it's a place I want to remember without having to remember her. I'm strange, yes. We then got in the car and drove to Astoria, which I had done only ten months before. But I was replacing lots of memories. When we arrived in Fort Stevens State Park, I was flooded with good memories, since I hadn't stayed here since I was eleven. Those memories can stay, but I also have it fresh in my memory now. When visiting the Peter Iredale Shipwreck, I even replaced the photos from when I had a girlfriend with nearly identical photos. Certain things stay in my mind from the trip a year ago, but most have been replaced by this more recent trip.
That trip represented a release from childhood, I could travel on my own accord. I was over seven hundred kilometres from home. This replaced the memories of going just where my parents organized.
Today I am going to Biology to replace the flawed knowledge of the genome that we were fed in grade eleven, which is a perfect example of a practical application of this process. I'll be replacing the memories of that class, including the harassment I endured in that room.
Maybe it'll all work out, maybe I'll be able to replace what I remember with great things I love.
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