#mems

sometimes, i find myself getting super nostalgic about terribly illogical things, like pieces of paper i've saved from high school with notes and annotations about essays i planned on writing. it's incredibly unnecessary, but a big part of my emotional life, if i'm being honest.  in some ways, the feeling of nostalgia is what inspired this podcast in the first place, because it's such a pronounced, pervasive, and varied feeling. so, simply, this episode is all about nostalgia: nostalgia for the past: for old technologies, for past times; for the present; and for the future. 

when was the last time you looked at the stars to figure out where you were, or used the way a tree was growing to orient yourself on a hike? do you watch the waves when you're at the beach to see which way the tides are moving and how to make your way back to shore? this week on the #mems podcast, i chat with a harvard physics professor about his other passion besides minute particles: finding his way in the world. 

entirely too often, i come home, make some sort of food, or reheat something i've got in the fridge, and curl up in the corner of my couch or on my bed to mindlessly watch television. nielsen ratings show the average american watches more than 4 hours of television every day, or about 2 months of nonstop television watching per year.  i feel like i go to television to become a veggie and forget about the world, but thinking harder, it's so much more than that. it inspires my style, informs my understanding of history, and gives me a place to relate to and connect to portrayed human experience.  is television a place we remember, or a place we forget? 

a little while ago, i was looking back through my photos when i happened upon a photo of my friend, on a bus in the west bank, looking at a map. which i LITERALLY did not remember ever happening. don’t misunderstand, i know i went to the west bank, but that entire interaction, her ever having a map of the region, or any part of that moment was entirely nonexistent in my brain. which was unsettling! here i was, taking pictures “to remember,” and i’d lost a whole moment i'd wanted to keep in my brain.  did i just lose a memory? did i even remember it in the first place? 

have you ever been really nostalgic for something that literally happened three weeks ago and thought, 'man, why in the world am i nostalgic about making a pot of soup?'. preview this season of #mems, which aims to answer some questions like: is nostalgia useful? how do memories work? should we all learn primitive wayfinding techniques? is buffy the vampire slayer the best t.v. show of all time?  listen to this preview and decide if you actually want to have those questions answered! the #mems podcast, inspired by the life experience of deeply nostalgic university senior sage smiley, is a podcast inspired by a technology-inundated life and a whole lot of questions.