Now that we have voluntarily uploaded all our personal life on the internet, specifically on the servers of Facebook & Twitter. We have time to actually go down the memory lane and look through our timeline. These experiences were un-attainable before the era of black & white photography, which when viewed brought some nostalgia to our lives, not that it doesn't now, but we prefer attaching a black & white filter to our high pixelated coloured photograph to bring the same effect. But the point is, should we go down the memory lane sometimes or often or may be never ?
Lets try to analyse this situation based on what we have been taught since childhood. The latin phrase "Carpe Diem" tells us- make most of the present and give little thought to the future. Lord Buddha tells us अतीत पे धयान मत दो, भविष्य के बारे में मत सोचो, अपने मन को वर्तमान क्षण पे केन्द्रित करो which means- Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
So things pretty much direct us towards living in the present moment, does that mean we should not think about our past experiences or does that simply mean we should not worry about what happened before. Is there a filter we need to apply to memories and categorise them as black & white or sepia and edit/delete the unwanted memories.
India's civilisations like Indus Valley, Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and many old age temples tell us about the architectural history that portray the lives of people in that time frame. So in a way, we are purposefully taken down that lane to show us what happened in past. Was it because our ancestors wanted us to learn from the knowledge they had gathered over centuries ? Or They wanted to transmit some cultural values in us ? Or Were they equally eager to express their thoughts out front on every wall so as to make the world remember even the tiniest unnecessary detail. May be they just wanted to create history from their present, which they actually have. But wouldn't that violate the very principles which we were taught of seizing the present.
Memory has been attached to us since our childhood, it is because of experiential learning that we do not wish to touch the hot pan again because the classical conditioning integrates into a cognitive behaviour that helps us avoid bad experiences. Some life instances teach us a lot, some are to be remembered and some are to be forgotten. But now that we have so much data to manage as "everything is already on the internet" it becomes quite difficult to handle each and every experience of life in one tone. Our thoughts are posted everywhere by us and we can't even contradict them, even if we want because we start believing that the image which we see of ourselves in the mirror would distort. But thats not who we are, we are liable to change, nothing remains the same neither the weather nor environment. So its better not to create a formwork for ourselves and try to fit inside that space.
But if you become inactive from the virtual world and actually start interacting with people near you, you tend to become socially inactive from people far way or way too near to you. So the "Social Umbilical" can never be permanently cut off.
Photographs take us into the time machine inducing a similar emotion as created in the previous situation. The image triggers chemicals in hippocampus part of the brain which connect us through the Neural Pathways created before. Hence we start sending signals to either re-live the past or create similar situations for the future. Hence browsing through photographs could be effective for creating, a desirable future or an indistinguishable past. But is clicking so many photographs necessary ? Could we live without it ? Of course we Can. But can we live without it ? Of course we Can't.
Most of the data we collect on a regular basis is useless and doesn't need to be added to our timeline very often, I mean the infinite pointless selfies taken from every angle permuted with every facial expression possible. However Groupfies would do :P
Data handling will be an important aspect of the future because of the infinite data we download and upload on the internet. More and more cloud servers and external hard drives to store TB's of data would be required. Although our entire genetic code can be stored on a basic DVD of 1.5 GB. As we are buying more and more data to get a spectrum of information, we are saving lesser information in our brains because we are sure that it would be accessible to us all the time, till the internet remains neutral. It seems we have outsourced our memory capabilities to a smartphone.
Most of the data we collect on a regular basis is useless and doesn't need to be added to our timeline very often, I mean the infinite pointless selfies taken from every angle permuted with every facial expression possible. However Groupfies would do :P
Data handling will be an important aspect of the future because of the infinite data we download and upload on the internet. More and more cloud servers and external hard drives to store TB's of data would be required. Although our entire genetic code can be stored on a basic DVD of 1.5 GB. As we are buying more and more data to get a spectrum of information, we are saving lesser information in our brains because we are sure that it would be accessible to us all the time, till the internet remains neutral. It seems we have outsourced our memory capabilities to a smartphone.
Now that you are doing nothing significant to create history, other than clearing browser history, better take time out to clear some of the data from your Hard Dix (except the genetic code) ;P
