don't save this for later

We often find ourselves ensnared in a delicate dance between preservation and immersion. The allure of the “perfect” and the “untouched” compels us to preserve our experiences and possessions within glass cages, but I’ve recently learnt (or actively decided) that to truly cherish something, you must engage with it fully, without restraint or reservation.

Like avid collectors, we continuously wrap various elements of our lives in layers of bubble wrap, fearing that any hint of imperfection might strip away their value. Bookshelves become archives, memories become digital souvenirs, and wardrobes become vaults that we stockpile with both old clothes and new, clinging onto the possibility that an occasion to wear them may arise. How many of us conserve so much for an undefined later date whilst life unfolds right before our eyes?

We hold ourselves back in the gym, worrying that we won’t have enough energy for the rest of our workout, hoarding our vigour as if it were a finite resource - why do we attempt to preserve the best of ourselves, what we own, and our experiences as if they were rare relics?

We see experiences as nothings but fleeting moments that have to be frozen in time, which, upon reflection, we find that our attempts to capture these moments has become the integral part of the experience itself.

While I don’t have anything against capturing memories, consider taking a photo of a whale leaping out of the ocean - in turning on the camera and framing the shot, you are no longer the subject of the experience - it is the lens, be it in a phone or camera. Consequently, you will align your experiences according to what would produce the best photo, forever relinquishing your role as the primary subject in order to freeze these moments in time.

We need to free ourselves from the shackles of the “perfect”, the “pristine”, and the “untarnished”, and from the urge we feel to force time to stand still at the expense of our experience.

I urge you to etch your experiences as creases in your Airforce 1s, fold the corners of the pages in your books, muddy your shoes with the rain-soaked earth, eat breakfast from your mum’s finest china set, and scribble mindlessly in the margins of your latest reads.

To live is to be worn, and to cherish is to embrace, engage, and leave your imprint on the world, smudges n all.