Dear Reader,
When I was in school, History was my favorite subject. It was the origin of nostalgia; it was our foundation as humanity, as a people.
How crazy is it, that as individuals we either run from our past, or yearn to run back to it, while schools teach us from our pasts in our very first years of life? More so, if all a past is meant to do is haunt and hurt, why did people spend eternities studying it?
If we’re all running from our pasts, why did our ancestors collect it all for us to study?
My dear reader, I may have mentioned this in passing to you, in some letter before. You and I, we are mosaics of memories. We are woven out of every experience and every person we have met and hated and loved and yearned for. We are mosaics, we are collections.
I am the first gift I ever received from my first friend, you are the first bouquet you bought for your first love. I am the first song my first love ever asked me to listen to because I would love it, and you are the best birthday gift your mother ever bought you. You and I, we are collections.
From postal stamps to coins, from cave paintings to abstract expressionism, it feels like humans crave to collect. They collect and record everything they ever feel, and it stays with them, in their souls, in their identities. Some of it reaches our museums and our interests, and makes a home in our souls as well. To me, humans are meant to love and to collect anything that they love too.
Over the past letters, I have asked you to do many things, dear reader. I have asked you to create art, to celebrate it, to leave subjectivity behind and embrace imperfection. Today, I ask of one more thing from you.
Dear reader, you and I might feel like specks of dust, for that is what we are in this ginormous universe. However, have I not proved to you that we are so much more? In our souls, there is so much to save and love and discover. More than anything, there is so much in us and our world to collect.
Collect, my friends. Collect your works, your loves, your memories, your pain. Build a home of them in your heart, and every time you question your worth to this world, please walk home to your collection and find yourself.
In an ode to collection, I did something. Whether it is arrogant, or stupid or brave, I don’t know. All I know is this - I saw all my writing sitting in front of me, and I realized that I wanted people to read it. Read it together, read it in a book. A book that I would design to the best of my basic abilities, but it will be the most beautiful thing in the world to me, because it will be mine. Wholly, and irrevocably mine.
Dear reader, I leave you with my home, my collection. Here is a self-titled compilation of all the writing I would love to share with you. Please read it, and let me know what you think.
Come see me here, or drop me a reply. Build your history, your collection, and live, dear reader.
Until next time,
Apollo.
"You and I, we are mosaics of memories." what a breathtaking quote. your writing lighted up my day, thank you