Project 365: Day 64 — Attention span

I have a good memory when it comes to some really obscure things. Like I remember the year my grandmother died and her tumour had gone undetected for a while, I had accidentally kicked her in the stomach while playing and she had just screamed and pushed me away in pain. I vividly remember that moment. Nothing before or after. Then I remember the time she used to give me an oil massage when I was about one or two years old. It was a ritual every Thursday.

I was going through a couple of old photographs today. Some really funny ones. The funny part is I actually remember most of them, taken on various vacations, birthdays, festivals, etc. Maybe there’s a thing to this. Our attention span has gotten significantly lower in the last ten years or so. I remember each picture taken over 20 years ago on my seventh birthday. It was a terrible one (the terrible part thankfully isn’t documented in photographs) because I suffered from a terrible bout of sinus on that day. Up until the age of thirteen, I have always been sick on birthdays.

But going through those photographs got me thinking. What is it about our memory that makes us vividly remember things that happened over twenty years ago? I can’t seem to recall some of the moments from my trip of two days from last year. It’s an odd thing. I feel having physical photographs helps. Somehow I believe the physical, handheld memories spawn a lot more memories and nostalgia than online ones that appear on Facebook. I for one, have very low attention span and I don’t think I can remember the moment they were clicked — this is the case for most of them unless I rack my brains a bit. With the physical photographs, the memories come flooding back. Not being the first time I’m seeing those old pictures may have had something to do with it but the memories certainly are less hazier than the later ones.

And because this post was all about photographs, let me end with this photograph I found of myself, rocking a saree at the age of three. Sorry, couldn’t resist!

Thanks for reading! :)