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37 Revolutions

There's this well known quote of course: life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.


So, looking back after having completed 37 revolutions around the home star, I was trying to jog my memory and see how many of those breathtaking moments I could recall.


Clearly, a moment whose memory one's brain has chosen to discard cannot qualify as a breathtaking moment by definition.


And yet, our brain stores information is some crazy fashion which is probably not yet understood quite comprehensively by modern science.


One can think in chronological terms. One's childhood days. Growing up.


One can think of emotions. Happy memories and sad ones.


Time dulls pain. Time dulls pleasure too. Memories fade. 


Should we try to hang on to memories? How sharply do we or can we remember old events? Some claim that they can smell and taste and remember the colors and more.


May be, if one tries hard enough, one can. But life should be about looking ahead. And memories are in the past by definition. And yet the entirety of who we are is absolutely the product of all that we have been through. No more. No less.


Memory is everything.


Without our memories, we would do about as well as a tree that had been uprooted from the earth.


And so, I reflected on my memories. The sad ones and the happy ones and the angry ones and the milestone moments and the disappointments.


Perhaps the only thing that is inevitable in all this, the only true inevitability is the passing of time. Even more than death.

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