The Pensieve

The Pensieve is described by Wikipedia as “a stone receptacle in which to store memories. Covered in mystic runes, it contains a type of matter that is described as neither liquid nor gas. A witch or wizard can extract their own memories or someone else's and store them in the Pensieve and review them later. It also relieves the mind when it becomes cluttered with information. Anyone can examine the memories in the Pensieve, which also allows viewers to fully immerse themselves in the memories stored within, much like a magical form of virtual reality."

The Pensieve is one of the many magical objects found in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling and is one of my favorite ones because it allows to “empty the mind when excessively cluttered with information”. Although originally written for a younger audience, this series of books has created some serious addicts of all ages. I became acquainted with Harry Potter books almost by accident, when I was asked to review them for some design work proposals back in 1999, and have become an avid reader ever since.

I’ve owned a sort of Pensieve journal for many years, even before reading about it. Instead of liquid or gas matter, it has pages. Instead of mystic runes, it has a hard cover embroidered with beads. Now in it’s 10th book, each one lasting about a year and a half, the Pensieve has been particularly interesting when I’ve needed to evaluate growth or change experienced during a certain span of time. I use only hard cover books with pages which cannot be ripped off and write with a permanent pen – no possibility of regret – once the thought is in the Pensieve, it’s registered forever and can be examined at any time later.

I hope to transfer some of the more interesting thoughts from my Pensieve to this blog – which in a way is a “public Pensieve”. Not quite as intimate as the original, but still, a very good way to empty the mind when it becomes cluttered with information…