dear samantha,

see, most things in this world expire.

your attention span expires in minutes, a traveler’s visa expires, my favorite angus third pounder burger expires in 24 hours.

stars die.

if store your cup of yoghurt in the fridge for days, the resident bacteria of yoghurt will start to create an ecosystem in the cup.

your prepaid cellphone credits expire, your favorite vanilla ice cream expires, batteries retire after a couple of hours, your favorite goya and lindt chocolates also have expiry dates stamped on their labels, most fresh milk expires in two weeks, emotions fade, fresh pineapple juce expires and turn into a nasty concentrate, those rare fleeting moments of perfection that we have expires, even your hi-resolution images here in multiply will expire soon (if you don’t upgrade to premium).

the universe will soon expire.

the sun will expand and engulf mercury, venus, earth, mars and then eat up the whole solar system and blow into a massive mass of energy in the galaxy. then all the stars, the neighboring galaxies and the parallel universe will expire and retire into a vacuum of oblivion.

nada.

but despite all the expiration labels around you, that most of the time stirs your emotions and simmers up depression or anger, there are ways that we can do to preserve things.

as he zhiwu (cop 223 from chungking express) wonders,

” if memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? if so, i hope they last for centuries.”

i believe that we should use our resources (technology, media, education, social relations) to preserve the memories of our experiences, our lessons and our feelings with people.

i know you know that people change a lot. we all know that.

the heart is as fickle as the mind. when you make a decision, your previous state expires. every second, whenever something happens, something expires.

i will not go all crazy about the philosophy of life, your life, our life, and everybody’s life, being constantly changing and all that.

i just want you to know that you have been preserved in a place within the vaults of my memory. your memory, together with all the other memories that i choose to keep, will remain in there, and will always be there until who know when. i will not say until i die because i still do not know if you can carry memories in the afterlife.
but i know, somehow there is a way.

if people can still see the light of dead stars millions of light years away from earth, then it may also be possible to carry the light of memories to any place and dimension despite the distance, the time, the universe, and the expiry date.
my food health and nutrition professor back in college once said that expiry dates of foods do not always mean their end. foods can still be edible one week after the stamped expiration date (i am not that sure, and besides it depend on the food and its unique chemical composition).

will our lives become better if we all wear labels of the expiry dates of the various aspects of our lives?

crush will expire next month.

friendship will expire in one week.

enthusiasm over work expires in 24 hours.

will lose focus in 1 hour.

appetite will expire in 20 minutes.

libido will expire in a second.

nah.

let’s just live life and veer away from the labels.

smile often, will you?

in that way, you can leave them a memory of a happy person with a good heart.
memories don’t just die in a snap.

they last for centuries like the stars. and if they do die, people can still notice them and see them blinking at them through the horizon of people, writings, pictures and legacies that you leave.



all the best,

irvin mclovin