"Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders."-Mary, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
For as long as can be remembered, memory has been a highly intriguing, thought-provoking process. The inner workings of the human brain have not only been the focus of intense scientific study, but also play a large part in the media. Movie after movie, TV show after TV show, book after book have been based on psychological theories. When a certain Newsweek article caught my eye, I began reading and was immediately reminded of scenes from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a 2004 release starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. The title of the film was inspired by "Eloisa to Abelard", a poem written by Alexander Pope in the early 1700's. A small portion of the poem reads as follows:
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
The Health for Life section of this week's issue of Newsweek features an article written by Claudia Kalb called "To Pluck a Rooted Sorrow". The article starts by describing an experiment begun by Karim Nader. This experiment involved testing a "fear conditioning technique", in which rats were electrically shocked each time they heard a certain sound. The rats soon started to associate the unpleasant shock with the sound, and formed a memory. Nader then realized that after injecting the rats with a new drug, the rats relaxed when the sound was played. The fear of shock and the sound were no longer connected. This same drug can be used on humans. We may be capable of actually erasing painful memories. This recent discovery is nothing similar to what is seen on TV, however. Dr. Roger Pitman is currently concentrating on victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, an illness kick-started by exceptionally distressing memories.
We may be able to help people who suffer from emotional scarring, but at what cost? In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the two main characters, Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski, erase their memories of each other after their relationship falls apart. Clementine undergoes the memory-erasing procedure first, and after hearing about it, Joel decides to forget about her too. However, half-way through the process, Joel changes his mind because he is still in love with Clementine. While the actual movie is much better than the rough story line I just provided, I got my point across. In the article Dr. Eric Kandel states, "Removing memory gets into dangerous territory. We have to think about it very carefully."
"To Pluck a Rooted Sorrow" brought up many interesting points, and I agree with something psychologist Alain Brunet was quoted on in the article: "People cherish their memories, even their bad memories. They don't want them to be erased, they want to recall them with less pain." I think that's what we all want, ultimately. A perfect life. But that's an unachievable goal. Life, in reality, is messy. When we make mistakes, we have to learn from them. When people hurt us, we have to forgive. I believe that our experiences shape us into who we are. Without knowledge of those past experiences, I'm concerned that the person we pride ourselves in being might be forgotten along with our lost memories. Any other thoughts?
Hmmm...interesting topic. People seem to want to erase their bad memories because they feel like they will "haunt them for life" or they just let bad things like these ruin how they go about their present activities. Oddly, this reminds me of a random The O.C. episode I stumbled upon over spring break. It was where Marissa was hesitant to attend college right after high school because she felt that her crazy past (shootings and expulsion) would ruin her applications and acceptance in any college. As she talked about it with a counselor, he advised her to write about it, to not let it ruin her present, but to live and learn from it. Even though it was difficult for Marissa, she finally decided to go to college after all, despite the emotional hardship she was facing due to her recent messy situation.
ReplyDeleteI think if we had perfect lives, if we had no screw-ups and everything we did was without flaw, then there's really no point in living. Goodness, that wouldn't even be a real life. Seriously, what's the point in learning and growing up and molding yourself into someone if you're not going to learn how to pick yourself up again? Life is all about mistakes. No matter how much we regret them, they're there for a reason, even if we don't know why.
Hello Jaseppi!
ReplyDeleteCelesta is very true. You chose a very interesting topic to write about. A lot of times I wish that I could magically get rid of some memories, especially the bad ones, but in all honesty, all memories, even the bad ones, are experiences that make us who we are. Getting rid of our memories might ruin the way we live our lives.
Most of the time, bad memories remind us of things we shouldn't do or should do because we didn't do it before and regretted not doing it.
~Carefree Kid