Are we giants?

When I was young, we used to swim in the lake.

In the middle distance was a bright orange buoy that would bob with the waves. It was the perfect distance for a young child to swim to—just far enough away to be a challenge, just close enough to be safe.

On those summer days, we would journey out to the buoy and back and feel accomplished. We’d fall asleep easily that night, not just from the exertion of the swim, but from our little achievement, which we could find satisfaction in.

This summer, I found myself at that lake again.

The buoy remained in the same spot, bobbing away. It hadn’t changed, but I had. Looking out at the lake, now, the buoy seemed closer.

What was once a challenging distance could now be a warm-up.

Our memories belong to someone else.

Our memories are a snapshot in time, not just of the event but of ourselves. They represent a figment of who we were, and cannot be divorced from our self, at that moment.

The memory of that buoy doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the boy that had no higher goal than reaching out to it. That summer child whose world began at the shore and ended at that orange beacon.

So, of course, when faced with this same distance years later, it would come as a shock. My expectation was built on the story that a young boy told me. A story about a buoy that was so far out that it appeared as only a dot on the horizon.

Perspectives change.

Sometimes it’s only a matter of physically growing up. From a higher perspective looking down, our childhood furniture appears tiny, and the distance to the orange buoy seems trivial.

But in other cases, there is more to it.

Over time our scope of experience increases. We travel further, we see clearer, and we achieve more. As the scope of our experience increases, as our perspective extends, the distances once measured by a more limited self will shrink when measured again.

While the buoy is the same distance it’s always been, now, more space exists between the notches of the ruler used to measure it.

Remember who you were.

Who were you when you first fell in love? When you moved out? Who were you that summer you spent with all your friends? That autumn you felt so depressed?

Those experiences are all a part of you, and your past self is part of all those experiences. Those thoughts, those feelings, remember that they were had by a younger self. Remember that they have been warped through repeated recollection.

Perhaps we should be careful with our memories. They are the thoughts of a much younger, less experienced self.

2021-08-15