So, I just watched a movie called “Rememory.” After finishing this grand-scoped, thought-provoking movie, I was left pondering this question while dabbing at tears.
If you could erase heartbreaking, devastating, tragic memories, would you do it?
Why?
How would that change you as a person? How would that affect who you are now?
And a somewhat different question – are some memories, some events, best left forgotten. Best buried as a way for your mind to protect you?
Okay, so I lied. I posed more than one question. Four or five, I guess.
Another movie years back had me kicking ideas around like this. I’m quite certain it was the film’s intention, of course, and well done. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” Did you see it?
I think I need all of my memories, despite knowing I have been robbed of some. Possibly I should edit the word “despite” and instead use “especially.”
I need my memories because even the bad have a reason of existing. Bad forces me to appreciate good. Loss helps me recognize what beauty I do have.
So yeah, even if I could push the button that wipes away all bad, I would not press it. Though, I will readily, and with speed, advise you to hide that button from me because tomorrow, I could most vehemently disagree with what I think now, and smack that sucker in efforts to rid myself of the burdens and pains of the day.
Memories don’t hold up in a court of law. They are untrustworthy and ever changing. Over time our minds add or subtract things from what ‘seems’ to be a vivid memory.
I just started watching West World where they can upload memories into android-ish, they call them ‘hosts’. Interesting how the new memory changes the story.
I had a friend, I use that term loosely, who said she was raped when she was 4. One day out of the blue she said she remembered that her sister was helping the grandfather rape her. This was 35 years later! She hated her sister and had an ongoing feud about something else. Did she suddenly insert her sister into the horrific memory? Who knows?
People say we learn from our experiences and memories and a bad experience is something to ‘learn’ from. Maybe. I think we’re all bent, twisted and formed by memories. People take meds, spend years in therapy to overcome life experiences. I would like to be like Data on Star Trek and be able to see memories, pick and chose, and archive the rest to access when needed. Rise above being sucked into memories or false memories. Ya, not delete, but rise above.
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A lot of what you said was touched upon in the movie I watched. “Rememory” Great points all.
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I’ll have to watch it. I’ll check out netflix. Thanks
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I’d like my memories to just be that a memory not some haunting tale that I use to abuse myself. So if I could erase the negative from the memory I would
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I hadn’t thought of it that way. That would be perfection.
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I’ve watched both those movies in the past, and they were thought-provoking.
I have memories I would wipe out in a second, just because I can’t stop obsessively thinking about them and they have caused me so much pain over the years. If memories make me who I am, I would take the chance on erasing them.
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I understand. There are days I too would do it in a second.
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