Goodreads. IMDb. Lists, stars, ratings. The world seems obsessed with archiving everything while all I want is to live art. I don’t understand why I should keep track of the books I’ve read or the films I’ve watched. Isn’t my memory enough? Because I haven’t forgotten a single book I’ve read or a single film I’ve seen.
I’m almost twenty-seven, and I’ve watched over three thousand films in the past ten years. For five of those years, I watched at least one film a day. After all, I graduated from film school.
I didn’t memorize the titles, the authors, the directors, or the actors. What stayed with me were the moments when my heart stopped, when I laughed or cried. Am I the only one who goes back to a film just to feel that magic again? Who rereads a book until the pages begin to carry the imprint of my fingers? Of course I’m not the only one, but that’s how it feels.
I don’t read something just to cross it off a list. I read to become someone else, letting the experience transform me. The books I’ve read, not many, but loved deeply, I’ve lived through them, with a pencil in hand and a notebook beside me, with tears in my eyes, with sentences whispered aloud until I knew them by heart, and with a soul marked by the memory of something that could never happen otherwise.
I linger on a single page for minutes, just to taste the bittersweet flavor of every word. Who still reads like that? Who stays, only to let silence settle? Over the words, the soul, and everything in between?
Yes, I forget the names of the characters, the plot, the theme, the message, but the emotion? The emotion stays. It’s the only path to memory. I have an emotional memory. I don’t remember facts, I remember faces, voices, stories. I don’t care about genres, only about stories that call me toward another version of myself. Classic novel, Oscar-winning film, famous author, what difference does it make? I simply can’t retain those details. Can you blame me?
Maybe I absorb art more slowly than others, because I lose myself in it, savoring every moment. But isn’t that an offering to creation itself? Isn’t that gratitude?
So how could I add to a list a book I’ve read, when all I remember is the emotion it left behind? It’s the same with films. Am I the only one who feels like I’m lying while telling the truth?
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