: this is austin's blog :

For some reason, nostalgia seems to be such a dominant drive for me.

My favourite games are the ones I used to play on my Super Nintendo. I still revisit old music that I've loved again and again. I probably one of the only people that has downloaded all 7 seasons of Muppet Babies. Reminiscing about the past, my past, reading old blogs, e-mails, journals, notebooks. God, I can't resist it. And it fills me with longing.

Such intense longing it's almost painful. And yet I can't resist looking back. It's not like I'm unhappy now and I'm thinking about a better time, not at all. I'm happier now than I ever have been in my entire life.

But the longing, and the pain. I don't really get it. Am I mourning something? Do I mourn the past lives, the past "me"s? Maybe. But I'm not really sure.

Memory is such a fragile thing. So many experiences of mine only exist in my memory... and maybe the memories of others who were a part of them. But once they leave, they vanish and are lost forever. Like they never existed at all.

On a Radiolab podcast, I heard a story called Metamorphosis about a waiting room. Once you die, you go to the waiting room, and however long you are remembered on earth, is how long you stay there. Famous people like Da Vinci, say, have never left the waiting room and probably never will. The only way you can leave is after you are never remembered again; after the last time your name is mentioned on earth, never to be spoken again. That is the instant that the "Callers" come for you in the waiting room and you move on. The moment you have truly vanished forever.

We're all gonna get there someday, unless you become incredibly famous for one reason or another. Otherwise, there's going to come a time when you are utterly and completely forgotten. Absolutely vanished from existence.

We run around and buy coffees, go to work, sweat, play golf, drive, eat cheerios, visit other countries, cry, have sex, pay bills, read books, everything. We do everything and one day far from now, you will utterly vanish.

It's both sad and strangely alluring. What awaits us when we have absolutely disappeared?



Man, this is not at all what I had imagined I'd blog about... but I guess I can save those blogs for another time.


Oh, the Radiolab podcast is called After Life, and you can get it here. The story is around 6:30 in the podcast, but the entire show is amazing.


"...Since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become what they want us to be."