Memories, much like videos, are full of triggers like landmines. Our “massive subliminal insecurities” pick up on and amplify these triggers. Whenever we are “feeding” our minds with sensory information, we take this risk. I would love to explore this idea more, the risk of sensing. The choice (or being forced against our will) to sense can lead us to bliss, anxiety, or outright turmoil. As artists we are asking our audience to sense our work - how best to direct their senses? How much can we challenge their senses and push them towards (good?) anxiety without alienating them? Or perhaps the question is how we balance bliss with anxiety, to create something beautiful yet compelling and thought provoking. I think Philip K. Dick has achieved this delicate balance. He spins a yarn, and it makes me think about how I can spin a yarn with my future work.
“There is too much fear in him and too much guilt… I must come up with ten years of memories, or his mind will be lost.” This tension keeps the story together, keeps us reading. It’s because we’re thinking about if we scoured our own minds, would we find 10 years of comfort? Really captures the horror of anxiety - left to our own devices, we could poison all memories with bad thoughts. But the problem is that we must sense, or we’re not alive.
“Aching memories; memories that hurt.”
No comments:
Post a Comment