I was in Thailand playing ping-pong in Ding-Dang.
So I got to thinking: How much would I pay for a hard-drive that contained every single image captured by my own eyes? What would my autobiography, uncensored and limited only by the ability of my photoreceptors to convert light into electrical signals, be worth?
My initial answer: everything and nothing. I hedged, what can I say.
Everything in the sense that memories fade. Just maybe, deep inside, hidden behind a network of interconnected neurons, there’s an image I’d give up almost everything to see again. Though I don’t know it yet, perhaps there is a critical part of my history that I can’t live without, and if the only way to recall it was by purchasing this hard-drive, I’d have no choice but to risk everything to buy it.
Nothing in the sense that I’m still creating memories and should honor my mind’s self-selection process. I’ve had to delete images from my camera’s full memory card, on the spot, and more often than not it was a difficult task. Imagine deleting the look on your grandfather’s face the day you took your first steps in order to take a picture with your arm around Charlie Sheen? In so many ways, I’m thrilled my brain does the job for me. Well that, and there are things I’d rather not see again.
My final answer: nothing, unless my life depended on it.
What would you pay for your hard-drive?
Categories: Creative Writing, Stream of Conscious
eternal Domnation 
Haha this scared me 🙂 if that’s the case, that’s a lot of photographers out there who will be unemployed 🙂
First, can I filter out the things I wish I could un-see?
Second, there’s some interesting brain theory that suggests that memory doesn’t exist as packets of information (or like a photo album) but we actually rewrite the path each time we remember it, altering it over time. Weird idea, but it explains the transformation and degradation of memory.
You can filter, but only with your own eyes. I suppose that provides enough temptation to make it interesting.
Super interesting stuff going on with brain theory, I’m always fascinated by it though truth be told I’m not sure I understand much of it. Google is a tool I use to be just dangerous enough to say something stupid/false/uninformed about a subject matter, such as this!!!
Hmm, it would be a lot to sign up for, but it’s a great thought for reflection!