A pointless peasant

[susie_flo]

Is there a term that describes a sudden wistful nostalgia for the present moment?  You know... like an enveloping  feeling of warm contentment, where you are 'in the moment' yet simultaneously aware of its transience and reacting to it as if it has passed?

The Japanese have some wonderful aesthetic concepts about transience, such as wabi-sabi and mono no aware, which seem to require several paragraphs to be translated into English but broadly relate to an acceptance of the beauty of impermanence and a gentle sadness at the passing of things.  Japanese strikes me as a very rich language.  (They even have a special term that translates as Paris Syndrome, the breakdown experienced by people who find themselves severely disappointed by Paris).

I felt a sense of mono no aware the other day when I saw a 'Who do you think you are' episode in which J K Rowling sought out her French ancestors, one of whom had been awarded the legion d'honneur. Living through war and turmoil, their life experiences seemed somehow extra-significant, and yet she discovered that her great grandfather had been re-interred into a common grave in the 1960s because he had died entirely alone with no family ever to visit his grave. The second death that awaits us all when nobody is left to remember us.

Sometimes I feel a similar pang for all of the peasants of the dark ages who lived and died without any record of their existence passing into history. All of those great joys and tragedies entirely forgotten. I wonder how many geniuses were raised illiterate, their legacy of brilliance entirely dependent on the oral tradition of the non-geniuses around them.

Being recorded matters so much to us these days.  It's impossible not to be recorded  And an experience is barely valid unless someone photographed it and uploaded the pics to facebook or flickr.  And yet, once our grandchildren are dead, the vast majority of us will be no more remembered than a 13th century peasant.  I declare that it is time to embrace wabi-sabi and appreciate the beauty of our decay.  It's really quite cheering in its own way.

Well, I suppose that's enough rambling for one evening.  Poor neglected journal.

Now 'tis wine o'clock, which barely counts as a transient experience, since it returns every day - hooray!

Comments

[dexypunk.livejournal.com]

I dislike the need of society to validate everything through a lens. A photo can never reflect the true nature of what you experience, even in the hands of the most amazing photographer. I photograph my children, but less than I used to when I realised that I wasn't spending enough time on the other side of the camera. I prefer to keep track of things through words, hence obsessive daily LJ-ing, scrapbooking, baby books, birthday books etc.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I seem to have become more of a 'visual' person with every passing year and these days my blogs (e.g. craft blog and parenting blog) are largely image-driven... I used to be all about words but I think the internet has killed my attention span. You're right that pictures don't capture the full essence of an experience. Often they tell outright lies. I think you need both, really, for an ideal memoir.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

You might like this - it's the fascinatingly bizarre worldview of an Italian peasant in the late renaissance whose views were only recorded during his trial by the Inquisition. He was eventually killed for heresy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Cheese-Worms-Cosmos-Sixteenth-Century/dp/0801843871/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376429441&sr=8-1&keywords=cheese+and+the+worms

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

That does look fascinating - thank you!

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

The second death that awaits us all when nobody is left to remember us.

Can I use this sentence - with attribution (how would you like to be attributed) in my work for the Place and Memory Project as it fits in perfectly with what I'm thinking about.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Yes please feel free - and there's no need to attribute it to me. It's not an original idea of mine. Many years ago I read a novella called 'Oblivion' by Josephine Hart, about a group of souls in a graveyard gradually fading as their second death (or oblivion) approaches - i.e. the time when they have been completely forgotten.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Cheers lovely - that book sounds really interesting but a quick scan of the reviews says otherwise.....

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I have to confess I can barely recall any of the details or the characters in it - it must be 15 or more years since I read it. I think it may have been a bit vague and plotless, but the concept really struck a chord and has stayed with me.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I can understand why - sounds a wonderful concept to me. I think it was the (ancient) Egyptians who said that if a name is written down then the person is in effect still alive but sadly I don't think this is true.

[steer.livejournal.com]

In interview the mathematician Andrew Wiles says that when he realised he had a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem he began to cry because he realised that this would be the best moment of his life. Sometimes I get that feeling after having watched that documentary, if I have a really amazing day I think "will that be the best day that I ever have"?

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

I have never had that thought... but I expect I will now.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! Great post. x

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-)