Do You Remember?

There was a post on Twitter … ahem … X today from the Phillies. It showed some kids holding up their cell phones at Bryce Harper, with the caption “Remember.” Which, of course, got me to thinking.

If we’re running around with our cell phones out, recording every possible encounter, are we remembering it later or just being reminded of it?  There is a huge difference.

When I was a kid - in the 1960s - we didn’t take a lot of family photos, and the only time dad’s movie camera came out was at Christmas, where he could blind me with the giant spotlights in my face.

The point is, I remember that stuff. All that stuff from my childhood. I remember it. I didn’t put it on YouTube or attach it to an Instagram story.  It happened to me, and it’s in my memory. That’s part of what remember means.

“Hey, you remember that time we did that thing?”

“Yeah - I got it all on video.”

But mostly they say “filming” which is odd, since we haven’t used film in decades, and most of the kids saying “I’m filming this” have NEVER used film. And yet, the expression survives. More odd behavior from the humans.

And, I wonder if most of the things I remember would look the same to me if I somehow could see them on video? I might be surprised at how differently I pictured it in my head years later. Memory tends to mask-out details and only leaves room for broad spectrum stuff. That’s what make memories fun, At least when they’re good memories.

We would all like to erase the bad ones.