The marking of time

igCorcaigh

I have this strange obsession with marking the passage of time. I think it may be a fear of forgetting.

As I move through life, I mark time in images and music in digital form to record my memories. For every year, I create a new Spotify playlist; and whatever music I am listening to at the time, I add it to the list. Google photos also captures every photo I take, so I take photos of things to remind me of that time. Places I work in. A meal out with friends. Random moments. Wikipedia is a great source of tracking news events in the world too. All of these things together can help trigger memories of past time.

Hopefully, with these online artefacts, I can piece together the moments in life, so I can look back on it in the future. In case I forget.

Am I alone in this weirdness?

grassylawn

I find that I have to think for a moment these days if asked what age I am.

igCorcaigh

grassylawn wrote: »

I find that I have to think for a moment these days if asked what age I am.

Me too.
I have to count up from my birth year (1973).

4Ad

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I have this strange obsession with marking the passage of time. I think it may be a fear of forgetting.

As I move through life, I mark time in images and music in digital form to record my memories. For every year, I create a new Spotify playlist; and whatever music I am listening to at the time, I add it to the list. Google photos also captures every photo I take, so I take photos of things to remind me of that time. Places I work in. A meal out with friends. Random moments. Wikipedia is a great source of tracking news events in the world too. All of these things together can help trigger memories of past time.

Hopefully, with these online artefacts, I can piece together the moments in life, so I can look back on it in the future. In case I forget.

Am I alone in this weirdness?

Im always taking photos,not to post or share but just so i can try remember a place or situation..
I am awful nostalgic and always looking back and reminiscing...

Strumms

I’m a ‘bit’ like that too....

I do Spotify playlists for every year at the end of the year...18 or so tracks, a mixture of new discoveries of the year and maybe mixed with old favorites that soundtracked the best times and memories that year, like holidays etc...

Have all my photos backed up, google photos and Dropbox.

Surreptitious

This is a nice thread, thanks! I take pictures and don't think about it and it's only years later I look at them and it is so funny how your perception has changed in that much time. I did a thesis on the psychology behind photography before. I can barely remember it though so don't ask me for anything enlightening.

alchemist33

Does anyone use physical photo albums anymore? I haven't in about 5 years but haven't really nailed down a digital alternative yet

igCorcaigh

alchemist33 wrote: »

Does anyone use physical photo albums anymore? I haven't in about 5 years but haven't really nailed down a digital alternative yet

Google Photos sell this option of printing out a photo album for you.
It's a nice idea.

(the absolute terror when your partner visits the parents, and out comes the old family photo album!)

igCorcaigh

4Ad wrote: »

Im always taking photos,not to post or share but just so i can try remember a place or situation..
I am awful nostalgic and always looking back and reminiscing...

I find the personal value of photographs increases over time.
My partner and I love looking over holiday snaps from years past.

My photo archives end abruptly going past 2009, before I had uploaded them to the cloud

buried

I do this but I do it by painting and drawing, usually doing so while listening to new music. Its a great way to record times in your life as you are spending part of the times enjoying the fact you yourself are creating something from nothing in that particular timeplace, and then you have it forever to remember. People could even see these works you have created and maybe even enjoy them long after you are out of here.

igCorcaigh

buried wrote: »

I do this but I do it by painting and drawing, usually doing so while listening to new music. Its a great way to record times in your life as you are spending part of the times enjoying the fact you yourself are creating something from nothing in that particular timeplace, and then you have it forever to remember. People could even see these works you have created and maybe even enjoy them long after you are out of here.

That is lovely. I guess putting so much personal work on a piece will always capture that time and place for you. Literally capturing your present and putting it into an object. I wish I had such a skill.

4Ad

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I find the personal value of photographs increases over time.
My partner and I love looking over holiday snaps from years past.

My photo archives end abruptly going past 2009, before I had uploaded them to the cloud

You see an old photo and it jogs a long forgotten memory...

I really should print out more photos..

igCorcaigh

4Ad wrote: »

You see an old photo and it jogs a long forgotten memory...

I really should print out more photos..

Exactly, this is what I'm on about.
Because I don't trust my memory.

And one trigger leads to other things, and so on.
They say that every memory is recorded in the brain, but the pathways to access them can fade.

buried

igCorcaigh wrote: »

That is lovely. I guess putting so much personal work on a piece will always capture that time and place for you. Literally capturing your present and putting it into an object. I wish I had such a skill.

You can always start doing it igC, doesn't even matter if you never did it before, the whole thing about real art is the actual real attempt to create something from nothing, and to enjoy doing it, enjoy spending time doing it. Even what you think might be mistakes are worthwhile. It is a fantastic mindsauce hobby and literally everybody can do it, and IMO everybody should do it.

NewbridgeIR

I have done a lot of Forgotten '70s / '80s / '90s / '00s playlists on Spotify.
Each one is in five parts, 100 songs in total.
Duration of each playlist cannot be longer than 79 minutes and 59 seconds.
Any song included has to have been released as a single.
Use one of my own photos from that decade as the cover for each.
Usually "release" them each weekend.

igCorcaigh

buried wrote: »

You can always start doing it igC, doesn't even matter if you never did it before, the whole thing about real art is the actual real attempt to create something from nothing, and to enjoy doing it, enjoy spending time doing it. Even what you think might be mistakes are worthwhile. It is a fantastic mindsauce hobby and literally everybody can do it, and IMO everybody should do it.

I write code for a living, I know it's not really the same thing.
But there is that certain sense of creating something in your mind, and transferring that system of thought onto a physical thing.
Similar yet different I guess.

Somewhere, out there, in the real world is my buggy code, doing the same thing over and over again. And repeating the same mistakes, forever.

Strumms

Long term memory can be better than short term, our ability to remember long term stays relatively intact with age and even with illness... Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s will still allow you to remember stuff from years ago, all be it as those conditions progress your long term memory will be affected to a greater extent ...

I keep all my old mobiles, I have loads of old photos I never got around to backing up, just be nice to keep them.

igCorcaigh

Strumms wrote: »

Long term memory can be better than short term, our ability to remember long term stays relatively intact with age and even with illness... Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s will still allow you to remember stuff from years ago, all be it as those conditions progress your long term memory will be affected to a greater extent ...

I keep all my old mobiles, I have loads of old photos I never got around to backing up, just be nice to keep them.

Yes. I read that long and short term memories have different mechanisms. They are literally different things.

I would definitely back up those old photos. They fade with age.
Always encouraging my parents to digitise the old photo albums, but they never do.

Ubbquittious

Fcuk spotify. Download the stuff and keep multiple backups. Spotify can be discontinued and taken offline in the morning due to corporate rumblings

igCorcaigh

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Fcuk spotify. Download the stuff and keep multiple backups. Spotify can be discontinued and taken offline in the morning due to corporate rumblings

Can mp3 files de downloaded and unlinked from Spotify?
Will they self-destruct if you cancel your account?

EDIT: To answer my own question: you cannot keep mp3 files from Spotify.
There is this paid tool to do it. No thanks.

https://www.noteburner.com/spotify-music/keep-spotify-music-playable-after-canceling-subscription.html

Strumms

Days before Spotify, when I was buying CDs I ripped everything to my PC... it’s a quite high end machine and anything I bought the same evening would just get ripped to it, it’s a Dell XPS desktop, I think around 3000 albums. Yes I’m a collector.

igCorcaigh

Strumms wrote: »

Days before Spotify, when I was buying CDs I ripped everything to my PC... it’s a quite high end machine and anything I bought the same evening would just get ripped to it, it’s a Dell XPS desktop, I think around 3000 albums. Yes I’m a collector.

I remember those days. There was this little app that brought in all the track names, otherwise you had no way of tagging or naming the music.
And then there was Napster. Your album might be downloaded the next morning, unless someone used the phone.

Gregor Samsa

Strumms wrote: »

Long term memory can be better than short term, our ability to remember long term stays relatively intact with age and even with illness... Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s will still allow you to remember stuff from years ago, all be it as those conditions progress your long term memory will be affected to a greater extent ...

My grandad, who live to 96 and fortunately never suffered at all from any cognitive decline, said just before he died that the worst part of getting to his age was the fact that his long term memory seemed to get even sharper and more vivid. He'd remember stuff that happened when he was a kid, and it seemed like yesterday. He found it difficult, revisiting a distant past in such detail - especially since some of the memories weren't pleasant ones - as he was always one to look positively to the future.

Kaybaykwah

This thread just reminded me to flush out all the dead wood from my phone's photo albums. Pictures of the inside of my pockets or the Eiffel Tower with a blurry thumb. Good memories.

Fandymo

Strumms wrote: »

I’m a ‘bit’ like that too....

I do Spotify playlists for every year at the end of the year...18 or so tracks, a mixture of new discoveries of the year and maybe mixed with old favorites that soundtracked the best times and memories that year, like holidays etc...

Have all my photos backed up, google photos and Dropbox.

My Spotify does this for me

OP why the need to keep looking back at old memories, rather than looking forward and making new ones?

razorblunt

I used to do that quite a lot.
In the end I felt I was spending too much time living in the past, almost putting effort into a life already lived and coasting in the life that is now.

Much happier now with just getting a nostalgia blast of hearing a song that brings me back to a certain place/time/event, acknowledging it and moving on.

igCorcaigh

Fandymo wrote: »

My Spotify does this for me

OP why the need to keep looking back at old memories, rather than looking forward and making new ones?

It's to make sure I can remember things in the future. I'm afraid of forgetting stuff if I have nothing to trigger memories.

Fandymo

igCorcaigh wrote: »

It's to make sure I can remember things in the future. I'm afraid of forgetting stuff if I have nothing to trigger memories.

It's no guarantee. Watching the Jack Charlton documentary, he had a song with him talking in it, extensive video, extensive notes from his time in football etc adn he still couldn't remember anything. Tragic.