The Price of a Memory
Posted on February 17, 2026 • 4 minutes • 658 words
What is the difference between: tears and despair, smiles and laughs, pain and torment, joy and bliss, adoration and love, moments and memories?
The latter seem to be an extreme form of the former. But isn’t an extreme just a reinforcement of the ordinary? Doesn’t this familiarity comfort the extreme, and doesn’t this loss of comfort truly make it a terror?
Sorry. Let me break it down.
Nothing distinguishes despair from tears. Only later does the stream of tears run dry by the blaze of the pain, turning it into despair. Yet strangely, healing, but not binding. A game of pain not making tears go in vain.
Nothing distinguishes love from adoration. Only later does it step close to see the fractures, and one chooses to worship anyway. Yet strangely, peaceful and not shameful. A reality seen vivid, with the veil of perfection less rigid.
Nothing distinguishes memories from ordinary moments. Only later do they become memorable by the scars they leave. Yet strangely, not binding but eluding—a melody of the mind filled with agony entwined.
Precious love, and memories—maybe it is the scars, indeed, that turn something ordinary into something precious.
The pain of separation births love. The pain of leaving a moment immortalizes it as memory. It would then not be wrong to say: the more pain something provides, the more prominently that something will abide.
Without pain, joy has no contour. Without absence, love has no depth. Without endings, moments do not ask to be remembered.
Perhaps, then, pain is not merely suffering. It is the cause.
But wait… how would this be the blog of a curious explorer to not go deeper, but to admit the permanent sooth of pain’s truth? While the scars indeed turn moments into memories, this means one would have to admit that the joy, the laughs, or the tears of those moments had no huge value in that instant.
It is to say that the moment in itself holds no true value. But is that the case? I urge you to look back at your smiles and ponder if those laughs didn’t, indeed, provide joy at that instant?
Some could say that time and distance romanticize memories and, looking back, one amplifies the excitement. And they would not be wrong. You probably were indeed amplifying the joy you had.
But what’s undeniable is that the experience is peacefully real. Maybe in that instant, it was not “precious.”
In the moment, joy feels ordinary because it is uninterrupted. Laughter feels light because it is unthreatened. Love feels simple because it has not yet been tested. It is only when something risks being lost (or is lost) that its weight is revealed.
This only shows the amazing attribute of simple emotions: so pristine that they make one forget the cost of losing them. So addictive that in their ease they feel weightless, and so accessible that they make you forget the scars their absence could carve.
A laugh that escapes before thought can tame it. A warmth in the chest that asks for nothing more than to remain. A time that feels like forever despite its impermanence.
Perhaps pain is not a creator of the extreme. Perhaps it is just a revelation of it.
We chase these grand memories and dramatic revelations of pain. But to be truly blessed is to cherish the quiet pulses of joy, laughter, and love in their simple form. The occasional injuries and the regular smiles far exceed the scars and painful memories one holds. Simple joys and everyday grinds don’t roar, but hum in a holy melody.
An ode: To the laughter that seemed light but steadied us. To the occasional falls that felt like part of the process but strengthened us. To the silent love that felt simple and maybe unexpressed, but is quietly infinite.
Let’s hope to notice them while they are still here, and not when their scars are all that remains.