Hi , did you miss me?

I've been on holiday, and here's something I wrote in Canada but wasn't able to send due to lacking signal.

You should read it because I'm confident you've got a brain tab open full of fantasies of things that cannot be.

I'll explain three things I learnt about memories.

Here we go:

There's something very sad - but also quite beautiful - about how the world continues to move forward with or without you.

In our current lives, we're tricked into thinking that the world revolves around us.

We feel important, vital and essential in the ways we engage with life. And in many ways, we have to operate in this way, otherwise we'd not take any responsibility or ownership.

But it's also a lot of pressure.

By mattering,

By being important,

-we feed our illusion that everything will fall into disrepair if we were not there.

And sadly this is not true.

I'm writing this on a beach at the Canadian Summer Camp I worked at for 3 years, a decade ago.

After spending about a year of my life on these grounds, I made the mistake of thinking I could return and relive the memories of the past.

When I arrived, my expectations brimming, I was delighted to see the camp was exactly the same.

--The same boats, the lakes, the energy, the smell.

But it was totally different too.

--New campers, different staff, different activities.

I too was exactly the same.

--Same British accent, same humour, same love of the peace, energy and purpose.

But I was totally different too.

--A decade older, with different goals, interests and stories.

This was when alarm bells started to ring.

There was a mismatch between my memory and reality.

How had I only managed to remember the good bits?

And, also,

How had I forgotten how much I'd changed in a decade?

Perhaps you've seen this quote before...

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - Heraclitus

The camp I'd fallen in love with was a certain stream of a moving river. Each day, each week flowed by. And a decade later, the water is totally different.

And every time you swim, float, sink and leave to the banks, you change. To dry off and expect the same return is folly.

It doesn't matter who you are, you must remember this as there're periods in your life you idealise, that are no longer.

But as well as life's ever changing nature, I learnt that my memories are positively skewed.

There are relationships, holidays, jobs that you remember to be much better than right now.

But be careful.

The past sings its siren song - except you're the one singing it, and it may lure you to change course, only to find there's rocks under the surface.

No matter how many marathons I've run, I always forget how hard the final 6 miles are.

It's selective memory at its finest.

So, Remind yourself that what was, was.

Not is.

You cannot return to the memories of the past.

Even if you want to.

So move on, stay present, hold your course.

There are ways to re-remember.

As a journal-er, I can read back and remind myself that those glory days of the past were just as frustrating, average and meh as the present becomes.

This is just a fault of human nature.

We always adapt to being 'fine' in the now.

The hunter-gatherer ancestors who got too complacent in the present didn't pass their genes on to the future.

If we truly realise this, we can extrapolate that the life we're living right now will one day be another glory day of our past.

All the time you reflect and ruminate in the past, you're denying a new glory day of today.

The sad side - I won't be 21 again. I won't enjoy the small talk, dumb laughter and triviality of camp. The good side - The river has changed me, and I'm looking for a different one now.

I went to camp: I grew through it, until I grew out of it.

What's your equivalent?

When your mind falls into rumination, what's calling out to you? A job, a relationship, a country?

The third thing to consider: memories are more like photos than videos

We remember short snapshots of the past. Moments, not periods.

Static memories trick us into a sense of permanence.

A static memory might recall Coldplay playing the chorus of Yellow at Glastonbury.

A (true) dynamic memory would remind us that even then, we had a painful blister, were anxious to beat the crowds to the next act, and desperately needed to pee.

The challenge of static memories is they seem easier to teleport back to.

How many couples get back together to recreate a time. Forgetting that they, the other person, and the vibrant relationship are all - now - different?

What I valued about camp wasn't really the lakeside view, the sports fields and summer sunshine.

The camp I fell in love with was the close relationship with 150 other counsellors I built over a whole summer.

The weekly bond with 12 year old campers (when they were good by Day 3)

The ongoing energy and effort to make this small atmosphere better.

I got to build things, change the culture, create a brand and story.

So when I fantasise about doing a week at camp, I now realise that the timescale is also incorrect.

That one week needs 10 weeks.

And that's not a sacrifice I want to make.

I don't want to go back into the river.

I bet you don't either.

And just to wrap this revelation up.

We get to choose whether this memory problem is positive or negative.

Negative - We'll continue to be pulled into comparisons with a rose tinted past that pulls us away from the joy of the present.

Positive - We're gifted to forget the challenges of the past, to create fond memories of a past that never really was.

When people ask how my return to camp was, I say "it was ok".

In truth, it was needed more than it was truly enjoyed.

I feel relieved more than anything: It means that I can rid myself of the fantasy of returning - and enjoying it like I once did.

In fact, it serves to be a meta-lesson for maybe 10 other fantasies I have in my mind. Of other times and lifestyles I could be living, which I'm not.

I'm flipping those rose tinted sunglasses round.

Rather than staring at reflections of the past.

It's time to put them on.

It's time to live in the present: where I'm making my next 'good ol days.'

Hope you enjoyed this one.

Feel free to send it on.

James

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