Collecting Memories.

Ten years ago, my goals would have sounded like most goals do: career, material stability, maybe a house with a garden, or simply the wish to live a happy life. If you had asked further, I might have mentioned material things like wanting a house with a garden or simply said that my goal was to live a happy life. I likely would not have defined that happiness any further. And while I worked toward it, I slowly stopped noticing the present itself. Time passed, but I often felt like I had not really lived it. Like entire summers were missing, even though they were technically there. The strange part is not that life passed, but that I could not remember it.

So what does it mean to live a life you cannot fully remember? “For us as humans, our memories determine who we truly are.”¹ They form our identity. Without them, even a long life would feel short, because the story disappears. “A life story is the narrative of the most important events of one’s life, told in a way that explains how we became who we are today.”² Memory is not just storage, it is meaning. It shapes how we see ourselves, others, and the world.

Memory lives in different forms. Some fade within seconds, others stay for years. But what we remember is not only about time, it is also about awareness. There is factual knowledge, and there is lived experience, our personal story. “Without episodic memory, our life would be like a soap bubble, existing for a few seconds and then bursting.”³ Without it, experience loses continuity.

This is where everything changes. Slow living is not about doing less, but about being present enough to actually keep what I live. When we pay attention, moments become more than passing time. They become something we can return to.

Because memory is not only something we have, it is something we create. Through repetition, reflection, and simple rituals like journaling, photography, or revisiting moments, experiences stay alive longer. Even sensory details, a smell, a sound, a texture, can bring an entire moment back.

This is why I started This Place In The Green. It is a way of living more consciously instead of letting life slip by unnoticed. Learning new things, experiencing first moments, and engaging all senses is part of that process.

It is about being present enough for life to actually become something we can remember.

This Place In The Green is an invitation to pay attention to life while it is happening.

Sources

¹ Denise Manahan-Vaughan, Irish neuroscientist, YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQteJwYulZ0&t=247s

² Tilmann Habermas, German psychologist and psychoanalyst, YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQteJwYulZ0&t=247s

³ Sven Bernecker, German philosopher, YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQteJwYulZ0&t=247s