Nearly two months ago I began my journey into the unknown. I have drifted through space and time as have the posts I have written, rooted not in my present moment but in the recent past. We think we move through space and time linearly, from one destination to the next. Yet we bring along with us our memories - whether from the distant past, or memories we newly acquire - and they shape how we experience the world in our present. Like driftwood carried along by waves on the vast tapestry of the ocean, we bob to and fro, sometimes finding ourselves in the past, and at other moments in the present; the future sprawling before us with its unfathomable possibilities.
The struggle to experience the present while also documenting it on the go has been quite real. How much time should I spend capturing what just came to pass rather than living it to its fullest extent?
We are compelled by contemporary social standards to share our life immediately. The Instagram story? The Snapchat? What are they but momentary fragments of experience, sharing but the brief bursts of excitement and joy that we feel, frozen into an artificial tapestry with little context for others let alone for ourselves.
By letting our thoughts and feelings simmer and coalesce over time and space they become more than just the sum of their parts. They become alive. They flow. From individual discrete moments to a continuous experience that harbors meaning.
Related Posts
The featurelessness of the Ka'abah is symbolic of this non-representation, and an affirmation of the monotheistic creed. And particular to Islam, its veiled-ness symbolizes the unknowability, the ineffability, and hence the inability to represent or depict Allah.