Still Spinning

I keep encountering the declaration that writing isn’t about jotting down thoughts that we’ve already had; rather, writing contains the act of thinking itself, of collecting and curating, then transforming ideas onto the page once they’ve been digested. To write, then, isn’t to merely transcribe what already exists in your mind; it isn’t the end state of an established inner-monologue. It’s the process that brings us from thinking to knowing to the physical act of inscription, often met with surprises along that journey.
I suspect there’s truth to that. This entry started as a small note I had written last night—just a single line—but it continues to radiate outward as I settle into these words. I frequently jot down such notes, but I don’t consider it writing. They’re small tokens, moments suffused with possibility for later consumption, when greater attention and pampering may direct deeper thought. That isn’t to claim that I’m a writer or that I’m deluded enough to consider my words profound; neither is true. But I know <a href="http://netigen.com/read/why-do-i-write" rel="nofollow">why I write</a>, at least in this space, and even with my <a href="http://netigen.com/read/time-is-money-friend" rel="nofollow">protracted absence</a>, what was true twenty years ago still echoes onward.
Writing is an act of mercy. Whether active or passive, pre-considered or post-processed, I write to revisit. I drop the little crumbs of self-indulgence to free myself from the burden of knowing that everything washes away in time. Moments captured endure. It’s the instant we cherish, the euphoria we live for, the <a href="http://netigen.com/read/square-roots" rel="nofollow">consequence</a> we regret. It’s those fractions of time that make seas swell and mountains fall within the landscape of our minds. It’s these fragments that make us whole as we find ourselves breaking apart. Collecting these moments is a gift to myself, years in the making. 
Words are a time machine, drawing us back to those feelings of old. But they’re really only there for us. Technology pushes the new, the insistent stream, drawing us further and further away, ever more disconnected from the words we once shared. These are mine, capturing a moment, or a feeling. In all likelihood, these words are for me and me alone. Outside of the occasional novelty, these entries only shimmer briefly in online oceans, then vanish from sight. Who actually goes back to read personal journal entries, save for the author? 
Loss is inevitable, but in this, we can reconnect with our past. There is comfort and torture in the return. Why do we do it? Why do we cling to memories scrawled in digital ink? We know the path is forward. We know utility surfaces in endurance, in taking one step after another, toward what lies ahead. And yet, at the end of everything, our memories are all that will remain. The memory of us, if we’re lucky, but only the fragments of what came before, as a testament to what was, wholly examined by few.
Retreading past steps is an exercise in reliving those moments as best as we can remember them. Reading engenders a reflection. Media is a window. Photos and videos allow us a look at the surface, but words can unlock memories deeper within, those not captured in the amber of portraits and places. Words are an infinite time machine that can transport you to a place you’ve never been, or back to a former revision of the self. It’s here that I like to visit sometimes, to sit with those ephemera of a past life, and dither about, questioning what was and what could have been. Happiness has never been a strong suit of mine, and introspection is a powerful tool, though often misused by the foolish spirit within. This isn’t to say that I’m unhappy or ungrateful for where I am today; my life, loved ones, and so on. But a wistfulness is inescapable, terminal velocity unavoidable; as I careen faster and faster toward an inexorable demise, I can’t help but look inward, then back.
There’s a trope that says you see your life replay before you as you shed the mortal coil. Well, we’ve all been on a march toward death, inevitable as ever; perhaps looking back at these past experiences is a slow death, a cascade of little cuts, with bits of flesh torn from us on account of time’s demanding hunger. More flesh for the feast. More dreams to the slaughter. More memories to forget, to remember, to forget, ever lurching onward toward oblivion.
Writing is a time machine that can take us back to moments of astonishing beauty, or pain, of terrible, hollow despair, but we can’t escape the machine. We’re bound to the march, and the best we can do is move forward, one step at a time, only tearing glances at where we once were, <a href="http://netigen.com/read/when-you-re-gone" rel="nofollow">who we were</a>, and occasionally, stealing a reminder of who we <a href="http://netigen.com/read/caught-in-the-infinite-blur" rel="nofollow">might have been</a>.

https://netigen.com/read/still-spinning