“I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don’t notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.” – David Byrne, 1986 True Stories
If you’ve ever seen this movie you already know that this cult classic is filled with almost a creepy degree of insight as to what we’re living over 3 decades later. Before cell phones, the internet, flash drives and so much more. Now, this isn’t a movie review, so I return to the quote above – As I watched this movie for the umpteenth time this line stuck out to me.
Isn’t this true in everything we do. The places we live, the roads we drive, the people we talk to…sometimes I’ll be driving and will actually head to somewhere I go on a regular basis which of course garners heckling from my passengers because I do it often enough that they know exactly what is going on.
Sometimes we need to forget – everything. We begin to take things for granted and forget their inherent beauty. We hear what we expect to hear rather than what was really said. We become callous to the things around us – sometimes it’s best to forget and see things how they really are. Probably not half as bad as our perception skews them.
