I Forget to Remember
I watched the movie Memento yesterday and apart from being intrigued by the movie, I learnt a very important thing - how valuable our memory is to us. The movie was excellent and made me think for quite a while. Imagine living your life in reverse, I would go crazy with such a thing. That's when I began to appreciate how much better my life is the way it is rather than knowing the end before the beginning. Then why would I go to an astrologer when I know life is more exciting because I do not know my future? I drifted away from the topic because of my contempt and disbelief towards astrologers...
There are so many incidents that we wish to forget so that it doesn't keep haunting us. I wish I could forget my grades at school, I wish I could forget my first crush, I wish I could forget the first time my teacher punished me, the list goes on and on. I want to forget bad things forever. But, only now do I realise how dangerous it could be to live without a memory that lasts just about a few days/hours. This condition is medically termed Anterograde Amnesia. Having to live with photos and notes all my life that would tell me (not remind) what I am supposed to be doing, is very scary. I can't imagine the number of people that could take me for a ride by manipulating the photos and the notes.
There are times when we had to do something, but we completely forgot about it. It is irritating when we can't rely on our memory and we have to write down the things we have to do (remember the "TO DO" list?). But, imagine having to wake up every morning not knowing who you are or where you are and what you are supposed to be doing. The movie Memento brought this perspective on a serious note and the movie 50 First Dates brought the same on a lighter note. I think these movies remind (again on memory?!?) us normal mortals how blessed we are compared to people who have short term-memory losses. I was shocked when I saw that guy in 50 First Dates whose memory lasts just 2 minutes and introduces himself after every 2 minutes.
A dialogue in Memento that caught my attention was - "I can't remember to forget my dead wife". What an irony in life to want to forget his own wife when he is forgetting every other thing without an effort. Gets me thinking if I ever want to forget certain things while I want to remember certain others...
There are so many incidents that we wish to forget so that it doesn't keep haunting us. I wish I could forget my grades at school, I wish I could forget my first crush, I wish I could forget the first time my teacher punished me, the list goes on and on. I want to forget bad things forever. But, only now do I realise how dangerous it could be to live without a memory that lasts just about a few days/hours. This condition is medically termed Anterograde Amnesia. Having to live with photos and notes all my life that would tell me (not remind) what I am supposed to be doing, is very scary. I can't imagine the number of people that could take me for a ride by manipulating the photos and the notes.
There are times when we had to do something, but we completely forgot about it. It is irritating when we can't rely on our memory and we have to write down the things we have to do (remember the "TO DO" list?). But, imagine having to wake up every morning not knowing who you are or where you are and what you are supposed to be doing. The movie Memento brought this perspective on a serious note and the movie 50 First Dates brought the same on a lighter note. I think these movies remind (again on memory?!?) us normal mortals how blessed we are compared to people who have short term-memory losses. I was shocked when I saw that guy in 50 First Dates whose memory lasts just 2 minutes and introduces himself after every 2 minutes.
A dialogue in Memento that caught my attention was - "I can't remember to forget my dead wife". What an irony in life to want to forget his own wife when he is forgetting every other thing without an effort. Gets me thinking if I ever want to forget certain things while I want to remember certain others...
posted by Ace of Space at
6/24/2005 04:55:00 PM
1 Comments:
Movies like Paycheck and Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind (the latter is an excellent movie) talks about Selective memory erasing. It talks about erasing memories that someone will want to forget. I just feel that if that is possible it will lead to a lot of imbalance. I'd like to break down this memory erasing to two types.
1) Memories involving only yourself:
This can be done, because when you broke your favourite pen, that will erase with you.
2) Memories involving other people:
What if they came back to you and reminded you of it? What if they stalk you? Sounds like imbalance to me.
Oh plus, the soundtrack of Eternal sunshine is awesome!
By
Sugavan, at 6/27/2005 1:07 PM
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