Despite our best efforts to express our individuality, every so often we fall victim to stereotypes. I've recently experienced this by fulfilling a classic college student pop-culture cliché. Dissatisfied with the dreary look of the bare sheetrock walls of my living space, I cautiously decided to invest in a few unframed 11 x 14 posters. I settled for posters of one of my favorite bands and a famous work of art, in my case, Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory in an attempt to convince people of my cultural sophistication. Only later on did I learn that these sort of posters were considered tacky. So much for individuality.
Over time, however, waking up daily to this copy of the famous Dalí has given me a greater appreciation for what it represents. It is difficult to pin down a single correct interpretation of any piece of art, let alone a Surrealist work. For me, the iconic drooping clocks symbolize a phenomenon that we all experience as we age. Particularly around the transition from adolescence to adulthood, there is a shift in the way we perceive time.
As kids, school years seemed to last an eternity. Once you're in college they somehow zip by in the blink of an eye. If you have a conversation with an elderly person, there is a good chance they'll express bewilderment at how fast the decades have escaped them. Experiments testing this effect have demonstrated that age can even affect our experience of what a few minutes feels like.
As the painting's title suggests, our perception of time is also intimately connected to memory. The unique and exhilarating sensation of nostalgia is something we associate with memories in the more distant past. These events leave deep imprints on us early on. As we grow up, though, the well-trodden paths of our minds naturally have less tolerance for creating nostalgic memories. At the same time, nostalgic recollections themselves lose their luster. If you really think about it, it’s difficult to distinguish between a memory, and a memory of a memory. Ironically, because nostalgic events leave us with impressions that last, all we may be doing by evoking nostalgia is remembering this memory at a previous time that has now flown away into the ether.
Fortunately, there seems to be an intuitive strategy to combat these gloomy facts. What is it about experiences earlier in life that give them their persistent character? It is precisely because they are 'firsts.' The more familiar we become with a type of event, the more we are numbed to its instances. My first day of college stands out more than the rest because of the feelings of anticipation I associate with it. But we also have the freedom to choose what we place importance in. I speculate that if we focused on treating the humdrum and mundane as firsts, we can live the present moment with childlike vigor. Focusing on what makes each new 'now' unique is a sure path toward constantly creating wellsprings of nostalgia.
So in a way, Dalí's deformed and melancholy clocks can be inspiring. I doubt that I've uncovered the true meaning of The Persistence of Memory, but then again, can you be wrong about abstract art?
