Addle-Escence

remember being 13 thirteen yes no boobies i hate you feed me addle-escent adolescent adolescence

I’m spending a surprising amount of time with teenagers this Summer.

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Nostalgia for Samsara

ignorant deluded I miss those days

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Mnemonic Arbitrage

in the now

In the comments of this comic, I was introduced to the concept of mnemonic arbitrage by my friend Chung-chieh Shan.

André Aciman understands. In his essay, “Arbitrage,” Aciman introduces and explores the concept of “mnemonic arbitrage” (152), which ties into the idea of experiencing the moment to look back on it. Mnemonic arbitrage occurs when an individual “[firms] up the present by experiencing it as a memory, by experiencing it from the future as a moment in the past” (151). The individual “grounds the present on the past, and the future on the past recaptured” (152), such that riding a bike in Central Park is not ‘the moment.’ Instead, the moment is consecutively remembering the last time you rode the bike in Central Park and anticipating the fact that you will remember this current bike ride in Central Park. You are “not just remembering. [You are] remembering remembering” (152). Mnemonic arbitrage is a more complex idea than memory or nostalgia; it captures the human instinct to save memories for later.

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Been There Then

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Membered

Membered

Poignant or tasteless?
I can’t tell, but today is
Memorial Day.

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No

help

I have to say no all the time now, but I still feel like I’m betraying my past self.

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Junior High

I had a truly horrible Junior High school career, in which I occupied the much-loathed lowest rung in a social hierarchy I didn’t want to be a part of. (How it sickens me when adults say, “everyone wants to fit in!” I didn’t want to fit in, I wanted to GET OUT.) That may be why I read the hundreds of very kind “Happy Birthday” messages on my Facebook page Tuesday with some cognitive dissonance. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept the identity of “popular.”

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Stepping Boldly Into The Futurds

you know how i lie awake agoniing over the past? memorrhoids! / well last niht i did it over things that haven't even happened yet / futurds

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Guess You Had to Be There

did you see this comic strip it's so funny / one character is talking about this thing she's read and then the other one says / some things are better experienced than talked about

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Freud

i'm treating my memorrhoids with psycho-analysis / but it's even more painful and irritation / now you have frrhoids
My friend Barry Solow made this awful pun.

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