Nostalgia: Familiar and unfamiliar
It is amazing how the mind works. I go about my day...living the present, doing nothing significantly noticeable. But something in the background happens that triggers a chain of emotions, memories and thoughts. Sometimes, it is an old song playing on the radio, sometimes, it is just a scent. Sometimes, it is the lighting, the scene, sometimes it is just the silence. The mind so easily picks up on these events that happen around us everyday and relates to some forgotten memory.
Sometimes, I realize the relation, I reckon the memory, and reflect that emotion. My lips steal a smile, or the eye lets go a tear, or they just look away for a moment reflecting on the memory. All these, when my brain responds to the trigger positively. Other times, my brain senses these triggers, but doesn't know what to relate to, something unknown. Kind of a nostalgia, but unknown, undefined.
The memories that came back usually range from pretty simple events to phases of life. The other day, I was listening to a set of old tracks. Came one particular song that I had not heard in 15 years. The moment I heard that tune flow through my car's speakers, my mind started visualizing the last time I had heard that. In the solitude of my room in my parent's house, when I was in school. A time when I used to like to confine myself in that room on the top, away from the world, with a beautiful view to the sky and the stars away from the glare of the city, when my thoughts were a lot clearer than what they are today, a time when life seemed a lot more simpler than what it is now.
This was a phase of life that was etched in memory and somehow triggered by that music. There was another odd incident, when I was trying a new brand of moisturizer. The moment I opened the cap, there was something familiar. I thought this was the first time I was using this brand. But somehow, the smell was so familiar that it kept haunting me for 2 days. That smell, gave me a happy feeling, yet there was darkness. After a little more than 2 days of letting that eat my head, I finally placed it. It was in 1995. My dad, mom, brother and I were vacationing in the Middle East. It was my dad's place of work.
My dad's friend there, owned a store; a pharmacy. The place smelled the same as my new brand. The smell gave me a sense of happiness; because that was one of the best vacations I had spent with my family, rejoining my dad after a long time, him being away at work. And the sad feeling...we had to come back leaving him there. That was the end of the vacation. We had to go back home, to school, to reality.
Amazing, huh? My brain had actually related to the emotions I had experienced during that time, without reminding me of the exact event. Well, I did have to work on that. At least I was able to pick on that trigger and decipher my brain's secret message.
Then I started wondering about the many such triggers, some very strong and others not strong enough, that evoke a sense of familiarity, an unexplained emotion. Do all of them have an underlying memory? A memory so unique that I might not even recognize the event if someone spelt it to me?
I read this somewhere: A woman with a happy normal life had suddenly developed a severe emotional problem. She would break into tears for no reason. After seeking help, she realized she had started to cry ever since she had walked by one music store where she heard a faint melody playing. The melody was a happy one, one she had not heard before, but when she listened to that again, she would get into depression. She couldn't explain why, no one could. After a lot of explorative study, her doctor found out. She had lost her mother very young; she had no memory of her. Her mother was apparently a piano player, and when the baby was crying, she would play the same tune to soothe her.
Even though her conscious memory did not remember her mother, her subconscious memory had registered that tune, which when she heard decades later, brought the sadness of her mother's death. A mother whom she had no memory of. Triggered by a tune that the mother played when she was just months old.
This is something that happens to us everyday, I guess. The emotion not being overwhelming enough, we do not go great lengths to investigate the memory, the relation, the odd feeling a freak event stimulates.
It is so easy for the conscious to lose course, forget the objective, and not notice the small things in life that have to be savored. The sub-conscious compensates for this in a way. Reminding us at a later time, thanks to some freak trigger, that those times, those events are not forgotten, they do have an impact on the way we live today.
As I write this, I have so many thoughts and memories flooding my head, like a howling tempest. I don't know what to write about, how to finish. I simply smile, shed a tear, and look up at the ceiling reflecting on the faint rustle of memories past.
Sometimes, I realize the relation, I reckon the memory, and reflect that emotion. My lips steal a smile, or the eye lets go a tear, or they just look away for a moment reflecting on the memory. All these, when my brain responds to the trigger positively. Other times, my brain senses these triggers, but doesn't know what to relate to, something unknown. Kind of a nostalgia, but unknown, undefined.
The memories that came back usually range from pretty simple events to phases of life. The other day, I was listening to a set of old tracks. Came one particular song that I had not heard in 15 years. The moment I heard that tune flow through my car's speakers, my mind started visualizing the last time I had heard that. In the solitude of my room in my parent's house, when I was in school. A time when I used to like to confine myself in that room on the top, away from the world, with a beautiful view to the sky and the stars away from the glare of the city, when my thoughts were a lot clearer than what they are today, a time when life seemed a lot more simpler than what it is now.
This was a phase of life that was etched in memory and somehow triggered by that music. There was another odd incident, when I was trying a new brand of moisturizer. The moment I opened the cap, there was something familiar. I thought this was the first time I was using this brand. But somehow, the smell was so familiar that it kept haunting me for 2 days. That smell, gave me a happy feeling, yet there was darkness. After a little more than 2 days of letting that eat my head, I finally placed it. It was in 1995. My dad, mom, brother and I were vacationing in the Middle East. It was my dad's place of work.
My dad's friend there, owned a store; a pharmacy. The place smelled the same as my new brand. The smell gave me a sense of happiness; because that was one of the best vacations I had spent with my family, rejoining my dad after a long time, him being away at work. And the sad feeling...we had to come back leaving him there. That was the end of the vacation. We had to go back home, to school, to reality.
Amazing, huh? My brain had actually related to the emotions I had experienced during that time, without reminding me of the exact event. Well, I did have to work on that. At least I was able to pick on that trigger and decipher my brain's secret message.
Then I started wondering about the many such triggers, some very strong and others not strong enough, that evoke a sense of familiarity, an unexplained emotion. Do all of them have an underlying memory? A memory so unique that I might not even recognize the event if someone spelt it to me?
I read this somewhere: A woman with a happy normal life had suddenly developed a severe emotional problem. She would break into tears for no reason. After seeking help, she realized she had started to cry ever since she had walked by one music store where she heard a faint melody playing. The melody was a happy one, one she had not heard before, but when she listened to that again, she would get into depression. She couldn't explain why, no one could. After a lot of explorative study, her doctor found out. She had lost her mother very young; she had no memory of her. Her mother was apparently a piano player, and when the baby was crying, she would play the same tune to soothe her.
Even though her conscious memory did not remember her mother, her subconscious memory had registered that tune, which when she heard decades later, brought the sadness of her mother's death. A mother whom she had no memory of. Triggered by a tune that the mother played when she was just months old.
This is something that happens to us everyday, I guess. The emotion not being overwhelming enough, we do not go great lengths to investigate the memory, the relation, the odd feeling a freak event stimulates.
It is so easy for the conscious to lose course, forget the objective, and not notice the small things in life that have to be savored. The sub-conscious compensates for this in a way. Reminding us at a later time, thanks to some freak trigger, that those times, those events are not forgotten, they do have an impact on the way we live today.
As I write this, I have so many thoughts and memories flooding my head, like a howling tempest. I don't know what to write about, how to finish. I simply smile, shed a tear, and look up at the ceiling reflecting on the faint rustle of memories past.
