The memories stored in pictures..

After contemplating for years over posting pictures on my instagram account, finally I posted a picture. The idea appealed as a good passtime for me.

I was looking at old pictures to select which one to post, and in a couple of days, a joyful feeling of having an opportunity to rewind the happy moments surrounded me, and when I say rewind, I am talking about going back almost 60 years. Looking at those pictures was taking me back to that same time, and those little but precious memories got refreshed in my mind.

Looking at old pictures also made me realize that even if I was mad at someone (like how we all get mad at our near and near ones sometimes), but when I looked at my old pictures with that person, smiling, laughing, hugging my feeling of anger towards that person went away, so much so that I actually felt like calling them up and talking to them.

I could feel a fresh energy in myself, as if time had taken me back 20 years when the bones weren’t this achy, and recall times were fast ;)

Life does not stay the same, it changes drastically with time. Our preferences, priorities, tastes, dreams, fears all change with time. Happiness and sadness are an inevitable part of life, and just like day and night they too keep coming one after another, and yet we always feel that joyful times are hard to get, and quick to go by.

The reason is we take joy for granted, and we feel so lost in the feeling of happiness that we do not even imagine any kind of grief or pain when we are happy. When we are in pain though, we keep cribbing, and keep imagining happy times, all the while cursing the unfairness of life and God and time.

The times of happiness evaporate like drops of water on a hot griddle..in a sizzle mostly because we are not counting the time looking at it to pass, but the moments of grief make us feel as if we ourselves are sitting on the hot griddle, waiting to get off. So basically the difference is just in perception.

In my experience, collect the memories in pictures during the happy times, and collect learnings and experiences during the not so happy times and understand and live with the fact that they are just like day and night, they come and go.