Yesterday I finally got round to sorting through a load of old books of mine that I have collected over the years. To anyone watching from the outside these will just look like a mess of old books on varying subjects – Clive Barker novels; Derren Brown-recommended psychology books; Music Theory and scale books. To me, these represent certain pockets of my life so far; different interests that have grabbed me and become an obsession at one time or another.
Sorting through these books is the first time in a long time that I have reminisced about times gone by, if only for the moment of time it took to carry them upstairs.
I also couldn’t help but think “What if I’d stayed on that particular path?”, for a given collection of books. For example, as I started to get into Web Development seriously, learning guitar kind of took a back seat to that. Although I do still play, I don’t put in ten hour sessions anymore. Partially due to the fact that I can’t get away with three day work weeks anymore. Boo hoo for me, right? But I can’t help but imagine how much more I could have progressed with the guitar had I stayed on that path.
Then there was my whole Derren Brown phase, where – after reading one of his autobiographies – I bought and read most of the books he recommended in it. I practised memorisation techniques; trying to read peoples true intentions through involuntary eye movements. I could even look through a deck of cards, with one card removed, and tell you instantly which one was missing.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m not regretful of how things came to be – after all it brought me to my lovely lady. Plus it’s not as though those things are gone, they just need to be awoken once again.
What things do you own that trigger memories of your past?
