--Mos Def, Travellin’ Man
“My memories are like coins in the devil’s purse: when you open it you find only dead leaves.”
--Antoine Roquetin, Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartré)
Memories, along with dreams, are probably one of the more fascinating aspects of humanity. We all have certain moments we cherish in our minds, yet these moments are often appear more as an impressionistic painting than a photograph. We choose to pick out certain aspects of a moment and essentially forget the rest. Our memories simply aren’t capable of remembering every detail of life. Both Mos and Sartré are lamenting this exact quality of memory but in slightly different ways. One interpretion of Mos Def’s chorus is that there is a clear difference between how people and moments live in our memories. People are defined by a set of qualities (i.e. personality) that we can more readily remember. Sartre’s analysis is a little more pessimistic, implying that our memories lure us in and as we search for more details, they vanish. Although I don’t fully agree, I have to agree that many of our sweetest memories are shrouded in a bitter fog of uncertainty that spoils our memories. We can often recall our sentiments but ultimately we end up deceiving ourselves simply because we’ll never again feel that moment again.
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