If You Could . . .

If you could somehow speed up your life like you can in video-editing programs like Final Cut Pro (you see it all the time now — just look for that ultra-speeded up shot, usually of cars or nightlife) and somehow every person you ever met or communicated with became a blip or a flare or something with a time reference, say, a brief email communication with someone over a purchase from eBay that you sold, or a mutual interest in some subject, or the dépanneur guy that you see every day but then one day disappears, never to be seen again . . . what would your life look like in fast video motion?

It would be a remarkable series of flashing lights, some too fast to almost see, with flares of relationships that last weeks, months or even years, every person you ever said hello to, every neighbor you greeted on a given morning, every interaction with a bureaucrat; in essence, every face-to-face meeting you ever had with anybody, including your loving relationships (this perhaps a bright, dayglo blue band that supports all the other flickering transiencies and serves as a continual — hopefully — base?) and would serve as a map of your Life With Others.

I’ll always remember a video I saw a long time ago (a LONG time ago) that showed someone’s house, then pulled back slowly and pulled back and back until it was just planet Earth, then the solar system, then the galaxy, then the cluster of galaxies and so on, and this was WAY before the Internet . . . and I was blown away. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could do something similar with a short film about all the relationships you’ve ever had with anyone?

I guess it’s called Memory but that probably wouldn’t sell well on screens nowadays.