On Watching and Memory

One of the ideas in D. F. Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is the idea that the process of recording an experience removes one from the actual experience; one becomes a watcher of themselves recording an experience, much like watching television (which Wallace states on its most basic level is watching furniture). Looking back on the picture or watching the film becomes the reliving of having watched something; therefore, one was never truly there to begin with. The example in the book is a cruise “participant” actively filming every, to the most mundane, detail of the experience thereby creating ‘this Warholianly dul thing that is exactly as long as the Cruise itself.’ Photographing something involves thinking about the presentation of the subject rather than the subject in and for itself. This train of thought cannot quickly jump tracks to actively experiencing the subject. After taking a picture for social media of one’s well-presented food, one may find themselves with a mostly empty plate by the time one is able to enjoy the meal.

Jorge Luis Borges mentioned in an interview that his father had brought up the idea that the repetition of remembering a memory distances one from the true memory; each subsequent reliving becomes a new image of the memory, more distorted than the last. This idea is being formally researched by the scientific community in the field of false memories. Pairing this idea of distorting memories by recollection with the idea of never having had the experience due to archival tendencies, every time they review their images and films of events, each person essentially becomes an author of fiction.

I don’t watch television and I’m rarely filming or taking pictures; I do spend a lot of time thinking about the future, and planning contingencies, out of a weak form of fear. In the former, I am arguably living in the present, even when sitting still (what some would consider doing “nothing”), and focused on the small pleasures and intrigues. In the latter, it could be said I am not enjoying the present enough. Paradoxically, a difference exists between what is said (viz. what people believe I must be constantly thinking about) and everyday action. External judgements aside, I think both are necessary for taking care of oneself. To use a trite analogy: sailing can be nice in each moment, but a boat without direction is drifting, potentially toward trouble. An additional nautical quote (using Paulo Coelho’s phrasing) is “a ship is safest when it is in port, but that's not what ships were built for.”