This is why I write
In a world where we’re quickly losing time and memories, I feel the need to preserve them all before I forget.
Do you remember your childhood? Do you remember running around in the sun with no iPads or iPhones to distract you, no Instagram feed to update or Tiktok to scroll through and laugh—a momentary salve to the day’s dull routine, a dopamine hit that never really stays?
Do you remember how comfortable we used to be, as children, to run around outside, black dirt sitting comfortably in your fingernails as you dug up mud from the ground in search of hidden treasures, happy and excited with the day’s discoveries of a freshly dropped flower, a beautifully formed leaf, and a curious little stone with just the right amount of sparkle?
Do you remember floppy disks and its multitude of colours? I remember the trendy transparent ones. I thought I was the coolest coming to school with a purple one, ready to submit it to the teacher in computer class. Remember how when you fiddled with the metal cover at the top, it clicks back in place?
I remember when I used to lay in bed at night and turn up the little grey cassette player I asked my parents to buy me for Christmas. I would turn the dark grey knob, switch it to the FM radio and listen to boy bands croon about unrequited love while I dream of being a grown up. Before today’s (bad) habit of scrolling myself before sleep, I would stare out the window, music blasting in my ears while Backstreet Boys, NSync and Boyz2Men, Aaron Carter and The Moffats sing about feelings I have yet to experience.
The world is changing so fast now. The months are moving so quickly too, as if they’re all in competition with one another, one tumbling after the next, barely making it alive. Sometimes, it doesn’t even give us the time to contemplate before the next thing in our to do list needs to be done.
I look at the news and the world’s in disarray. There’s corruption and deceit and wars… so many wars. Media is now being used as a weapon to manipulate the public. Information for infomation’s sake seems to be a thing of the past. Facts are now mixed with an underlying intent to cause fear and panic; one after another there are deaths and stealing and misfortune.
Everyone is now overstimulated.
Do you remember your childhood? Stimulation was a friend you welcomed with open arms. What is that new thing? I wonder how it works. What is this new place? I wonder what I can discover here. Who is that person? I wonder what funny stories they might tell me.
The world back then was filled with so much wonder. Reality hadn’t set in… or at least, the reality society has now solidified in our minds as how we’re meant to live our life.
Then you see the people who are trying their best to go back to that childhood wonder. The dreamers and the doers, the travellers and the artists, looking to find that peace, trying every day to see the world for its purity and its beauty, despite of. They are the ones unafraid to be vulnerable, who want to—NO—need to express themselves lest it explodes in a massive heap in front of them.
I think it is most desperately important now, of all times, to write and express and remember. To write about our childhood, the things that are now reserved for museums and long-lost memories. To remember how simple life was back then and to emulate it in our writing, our art, and how we see the world (hopefully gently, still). To express ourselves in a way that the child in us will remember what it is to still be free.
This is why I find myself writing so desperately now. In a world where we’re quickly losing time and memories, I feel the need to preserve them all before I forget, before the passage of time and the responsibilities of life swallows them whole until I’m but a robot going through the daily motions, forgetting what keeps me going, forgetting what I’m passionate about, forgetting who I am at my core.
