Rediscovering Things From the Past: How Our Mind Changes

A few months ago, I was trying to remember a song from My Chemical Romance that I heard a long time ago. All what I remember was two things: One, the video had the “black and white” filter — that in the end is just a gray filter—and the video ended with a girl crying a black tear (in my mind I thought her tears were blood and the eyes were filled in black). I found it and rediscovered the name of the song, I Don’t Love You. And it was way more depressing and emo then I remembered.

It doesn’t mean that it’s a bad song — I still liked it anyway — however, it makes me realize how we change though the years. When I was a kid, I liked the song because of the guitar solos and visuals, but now, the sincerity from the lyrics and the dramatic, typically intense vocals from the 2000’s emo bands are the things that attract me more.

The question is, I grew up listening to this but now all the things I used to know are now different. I’m 21 actually and today, Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame is way more meaningful to me than before thanks for the excellent construction of Frolo’s character and the constant debated subject “the limits of the faith and our humanity”. There’s a line that express this point in the song “Hellfire”, from Judge Frolo himself:

“He [God] made the devil so much stronger than a man…”

The line above is something that anyone that has a fanatic faith would use as a scapegoat. The fault is never from the person, the sin is never the fault of the sinner, but from the devil who led him to such. And I would never see that as a child.

When we grow up, time simply passes without question. We don’t have the conception of time until the moment were you end the teenage and see how old the things you knew are now. The song that I mentioned above were released in 2006, more than a decade ago, The Hunchback of Notre Dame was released in 1996, one year before I was born. The fact is we don’t have the notion of time during childhood and teenage, because everything is our time. When I started to work and have my own money, even if it’s not a official job, I realized I’m from another time, with another education. When I was a kid, PlayStation 2 were the most great console in the time, smartphones were something that no one expected. Who could ever foresee little devices working as mini computers at the hand?

We couldn’t even imagine how internet evolved into the tool we know today. Man, I still remember YouTube as a place to see fanmade flash animations, music clips — without official channels like Vevo or Warner Music — and YouTube Poop (but in the brazilian version, called YTPBR or YouTube Poop Brasil). In my time, the conception of “youtuber” was simply impossible to imagine.

Those changes were not only because time passed, but also because our mind changed too. The gaming content on YouTube still exists, but no one becomes a pop star just doing gameplay videos anymore. The trend now is totally different, and we soon realize it looking back.

Finally, I like to end this text saying that feel this difference between what you used to like and now is really healthy and funny. Of course, the marks of time are finally getting visible and it scares, but be proud of your journey. Keep growing, discovering new things, and never let that little part of your childhood fade away. Your within child will be always there, don’t matter how old you are now.