Memorical

Today is international labour day. As an active organising pestering socialist I was utterly convinced of the inevitable forward march of labour, now halted I just sit and ponder...

What's is all about, Alfie?

Good question. What is it all about. Have you ever had years in your life when time seems to have stood still, one year on and you are still stood there? On the other hand, do you know the long weekend that seems to last a year, so much crammed into each second that the very measure of time expands to accomodate the moment?

I once saw a leopard in a Niassa forest, far away from any national park or zoo. We looked at each other for 2 seconds, or was it two years. A moment indelibly hard wired into my memory.

Now what about those years of depression, or should I say compression. Because reflection reduces the wasted months to minutes and then to seconds.

Hindsight balances the leopard second and the depression years with equal memorical weight. And what about that first glance of the forbidden or that recurring unrequieted sensuous lust? It never happened, yet it has memorical weight, a sort of memorical opportunity cost.

There seems to be a very loose connection between physical aging and mental maturing. They are connected as if by elastic, one can race ahead of the other, or one can lag behind. Only a sudden shock, or the honesty of the sleeping face, can relax the elastic to its resting point, combining the two in a temporary harmony. Once awake, the conscious mind returns to zig zag ahead or behind the slow march of dying cells, like a puppy wizzing around its master as he maintains a steady destinatory trajectory.

Memorical is a word invented by Paradox to signify the weight that reflection attributes to each remembered moment or set of moments.