Ep. 2 - Memories
Last week, on the same day of my close encounter, I was reading an article on the newspaper on how scientists were able to erase parts of the memory of lab rats, making way for stories like in the movie Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, to actually be possible. For those who didn’t see it, it tells the story of a couple that undergoes a procedure to erase the memories of their relationship so they wouldn’t suffer from their break up. That got me thinking about which memories I’d like to have erased.
Memories, besides lighting the corners of our minds, become a real part of us, like an organ, like a liver or a kidney. If someone takes you a kidney, you are able to live, but without a liver you’d die. Which memories, if erased, would still allow me to be my whole self and which would make my life unrecognisable? Which one’s would be keepers? Which memories would I «wash out of my hair»?
I believe that everything that happens to me in the course of my life has at least the purpose of teaching me a bit more about myself. I’ve learned to love and appreciate myself so there’s very little in my life that I’d have done differently, as I’ve come all this way to accept how I am with no regrets. Ok, I could have taken other decisions, could have chosen other ways but would those have led me to this good place I’m in today? On the other hand, as life repeats itself, when temptation is strong, do we really remember the regrets and act differently? Do we really live and learn or the taste for the risk conveniently erases our memories?
May 14th, 2008 at 14:31
I beleive memories are paramount to one’s identity. As I once wrote here on the blog: “Memories are what shape us, what guides us”.
But, if you’re gonna “wash that man right out of your hair”… do it with a fancy shampo and conditioner!
May 14th, 2008 at 17:20
everytime i read or write something about memory and learning and doing something or repeating something i start listening to a song by coldplay in my head: “we never change do we? we never learn do we?”
as wonderful as this line of thought is, i do regret somethings in my life and i would love to go back and redo them. and as cliché as it is, i regret the most, things that i haven’t done when i had the chance.
but time moves forward and i like to believe that i move forward with it. it’s funny. just minutes ago a friend was telling me how we could look life in two directions. we can say that our life is what we have done until now or simply think that what was done is done and that our life is what we are going to do next.