About loss

The late Mark Fisher, on the relatively new experience of being able to reconnect with your childhood gaze through the wonders of technology:

By then, thanks to VHS, DVD and YouTube, it seemed that practically everything was available for rewatching. In conditions of digital recall, loss is itself lost. 

I think I know what he means; an extended episode of gentle melancholy, for me extending from about eight to 28, during which we thought we might never see that particular episode of The Herbs, or Ludwig, or Crystal Tipps and Alistair, again. Now they’re available wherever we look and all we have left to miss is the melancholy. But I pity kids today who’ve always been able to have Peppa Pig on tap and don’t know what missing even means.

PS: Flashback to the time I went to Tokyo and whole swathes of childhood that I thought I’d imagined opened up before me.