Who would have known? - you don't want to read this

Memories can be an indulgence. An inconvenience. A necessity.

I found myself wanting to look at my photos today. Photos from the time I left junior college right through to the time I return to Singapore after studies. Since I didn't take much photos (at least I don't own them) during army days, I wasn't thinking about them so much. There were a couple of albums when I was in midshipman school. Mostly pictures of the overseas ports I visited as part of a training deployment of which I went twice. They were mostly regional ports. I can remember calling at Manila (The Philippines), Kure (Japan), Pusan (South Korea), Chinhae (South Korea), Bangkok (Thailand), Sattahip (Thailand), Qingdao (China), Kaohsiung (Taiwan, ROC), Manado (N. Sulawesi Indonesia) and that's about all. By the time I completed my midshipman school, I have never sailed through the Malacca Straits. Since I started serving my bond, I have revisited Sattahip, stopped by Panjang (Indonesia) while en-route back from Timor Leste, Penang (Malaysia - my one and only port west of Singapore Straits). The geographically savvy ones would have noticed that all the ports are around South China Sea, Celebes Sea, Karimata Straits, Sunda Straits, Sulu Sea, Java Sea, Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, Formosa Straits, Gulf of Thailand, Flores Sea.... By now I have gone through that particular straits about 4 times. There are lapses, parts which I simply cannot remember. While some of the memories could be nothing more than a confabulation of imagined memories I have convinced myself that actually happened. Memories are an indulgence because you cannot have much proper use of it except to reminisce, perhaps crinkling a smile but what else is there?

My first flight was 14 hours long. Thereabouts. Took me from Changi Airport to Heathrow. That was where I started uni life. And while there, definitely took the chance to visit surrounding cities, towns and places. Many of them in the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales, Edinburgh, cities around England but never venturing into Wales. Dublin, Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Siena, Pisa, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Berlin, Cologne, Dresden (I think), Leipzig, island hopping (not in Greece) Mallorca, Ibiza, Formentera, Malta and I think that's that. During the summer holidays I went backpacking in Vietnam (Hue, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Danang, Nha Trang), went down East Coast Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast, Brisbane). I was looking at the pictures, at the travel companions, the people I took photos with, the tricycle man, fellow Japanese travelers (hahaha!), my uni friends, the places, the sites (some of which I have revisited - mostly Spanish ones), my room in uni, my graduation, the first time I was in London, the people I was close to, the people I have grown closer to (none) and the people that have drifted out of my life, single-serving friends (aplenty), the last picnic I ever had in uni....and I start to realise that memories can be an inconvenience. Especially fond memories, memories you immediately know you will treasure for life, memories that are good. These memories form so sort of a baseline with which all good memories must meet. It is also inconvenient because they become part of you and you can only live with it. They remain with you till you die. Sometimes a person's present standing is based on his past. Impressions are created from the immediate past. Memories are thus inconvenient because you are unwittingly defined by them, and that may not be a good thing all the time.

I cannot imagine myself not having any memories. Neither can I imagine that on anyone else. But what I can do is to be less judgmental about others' past. Including my own. Perhaps reminisce a little less, indulge less frequently, don't be inconvenienced by it. Life, and living live, necessitates memories. Without which, there isn't much of life to talk of.