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Aug. 30th, 2012 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogAfter arriving at school by bike, I often sit down on a bench near the rack I lock up to. I enjoy the sights and sounds of outside for a while, relaxing and letting my brain wander. Today, I thought about my bicycle.
In the past, I've been inclined to get personally invested in things. I don't so much anymore, but I do feel that way a bit about my bike. I bought it a (relative) long time ago and have spent a lot of time on it. When I first had it, it was a way to get away and be solitary. Now, it's a way to exercise and be social (I'm looking forward to more riding with my brother's friend Andy). There was a very different me riding around on that bike fifteen years ago. I feel some level of emotional investment and connection to my past in it that makes me a little sad to think of upgrading to another bike someday.
I wonder if this comes from some instinctive understanding that things are often more permanent than people. If I were to die tomorrow, there'd still be this bike that has taken me so many places. This car I've gone so far in. These cameras I've carried onto roofs and through crawlspaces.
But those won't mean anything for anyone who doesn't know me. As much as I sometimes yearn to know the history behind some book or tool sitting on a shelf in the Goodwill store I'm browsing in, they don't remember, and their speech comes in muted, mumbled whispers. They can't tell stories. I've done neat things worth remembering and sharing with my car and bike and camera, and once I die, those first-hand memories are gone with them. "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
As I realized later in my life, and as I've written before, things aren't important. People and their experiences and feelings are. I want to tell people about the things I do and the things I've done. And I want to hear about other people's lives. I want all of our memories to last forever.
In the past, I've been inclined to get personally invested in things. I don't so much anymore, but I do feel that way a bit about my bike. I bought it a (relative) long time ago and have spent a lot of time on it. When I first had it, it was a way to get away and be solitary. Now, it's a way to exercise and be social (I'm looking forward to more riding with my brother's friend Andy). There was a very different me riding around on that bike fifteen years ago. I feel some level of emotional investment and connection to my past in it that makes me a little sad to think of upgrading to another bike someday.
I wonder if this comes from some instinctive understanding that things are often more permanent than people. If I were to die tomorrow, there'd still be this bike that has taken me so many places. This car I've gone so far in. These cameras I've carried onto roofs and through crawlspaces.
But those won't mean anything for anyone who doesn't know me. As much as I sometimes yearn to know the history behind some book or tool sitting on a shelf in the Goodwill store I'm browsing in, they don't remember, and their speech comes in muted, mumbled whispers. They can't tell stories. I've done neat things worth remembering and sharing with my car and bike and camera, and once I die, those first-hand memories are gone with them. "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
As I realized later in my life, and as I've written before, things aren't important. People and their experiences and feelings are. I want to tell people about the things I do and the things I've done. And I want to hear about other people's lives. I want all of our memories to last forever.
