Connected with a friend today. Found that we have almost forgotten how we met, what we did together. It raises a question: how should we spend memory?
Why is human memory built for forgetting? Because life is too painful? Too boring? Too happy? Maybe excessive things are not good, or maybe the higher one just doesn’t have enough ability to build a never-forgetting brain. Interesting.
English has the phrase “spend time with.” I would rather say “connect.” Maybe because of my native language. “Spend time” makes time the thing, like currency, like something you use up. But “connect” makes it feel like I want to build a connection, not focus on time. That’s linguistics, different languages focus on different tiny aspects of the same act.
In Chinese, we don’t have the phrase “spend time with.” We don’t think you need to be intentional in using time; we focus on doing something. The frame shifts from time to care, from duration to action. Like the greeting in Chinese, we won’t say “how are you” (it sounds serious to say “how are you” in Chinese; we would explain in a bit more detail like what we are doing right now, not like Westerners who answer with only one word: good). Instead, we will say “have you eaten?” Sounds relaxed, right?
I cared so much about whether the person wanted to do something with me. From my perspective now, “spend time with” might not be the most important thing, what matters most is “connect with.”
Will think about and talk about it soon.
(I am writing my random thoughts but found that this part is kinda interesting, so I amended it a bit and am posting it separately yay 😛 )
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