Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind?

Pagey's_Girl

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Interesting...

PTSD and phobias aside, what if you really could go back and erase an ugly memory? Would you, and should you, even? How do we know that most painful memory isn't what made us who we are? Interesting stuff...

(As for me, I think I'd happily delete that memory of dropping the full paint pallate in fifth grade. *cringes in humiliation thirty years later...*)
 

maxmordon

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Memories are what make us human, what shape our personalities and, like bricks in a wall, help ourselves with our writings, with our choices.

Loosing memories would make ourselves loosing a bit of our human persona
 

Shadow_Ferret

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I have a couple memories I'd like expunged. I think they'd make me a better person today. Vastly different. No longer bitter. Probably not as witty or sarcastic. Most likely with more self-confidence and self-esteem. I'd probably be boring as hell, all white bread and milque toast, but better. But I'd have more than likely gone on to college, gotten a degree in veterinary medicine, married my high school sweetie.

*sigh*

My life sucks.

Great, now I'm all depressed.
 

Vincent

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Right now, I'd seriously consider it. Ask me again in a week and who knows.

That's the problem.
 

sunna

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PTSD, phobias and all, absolutely not.
 

Pagey's_Girl

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I have a couple memories I'd like expunged. I think they'd make me a better person today. Vastly different. No longer bitter. Probably not as witty or sarcastic. Most likely with more self-confidence and self-esteem. I'd probably be boring as hell, all white bread and milque toast, but better. But I'd have more than likely gone on to college, gotten a degree in veterinary medicine, married my high school sweetie.

*sigh*

My life sucks.

Great, now I'm all depressed.

You wouldn't be the ferret we all know and love. That wouldn't be better.
 

Grrarrgh

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I don't know. I definitely see the appeal. But memories aren't created in a vacuum. What would erasing one memory do to all of the connected ones?
 

Yeshanu

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I think it's probably more useful as an explanation of how we already manage to forget things that seem to be unforgettable. Like Grrarrgh said, memories aren't created in a vacuum. We're also not mice--our brains are infinitely more complex. And haven't we, as a race, learned our lesson regarding mind-altering drugs and their side effects?

*sigh*

Apparently not.

As for Sir Ferret, while you might erase those things that held you back, you might also be erasing those things that make you the ferret we know and love. And you wouldn't be adding any positive memories that would spur you on to being something different.

I've found that the best way to deal with the yucky and unpalatable things in my life is to learn from them instead of forget them, and move on. I've got an image of the type of person I'd like to become, and instead of blaming past mistakes for holding me back, I actively try to create new realities to make my dreams come true.

Yes, we all have things we'd rather forget. But even if I could forget, for example, that my sister committed suicide or that I was raped as a young woman, what good would it do? My sister won't come back to life, and other young woman will still suffer the trauma of date rape.

But if I remember, painful as it is, I can also remember why it's important for me to speak up and have my voice heard to change things.

Yes, PTSD is a horrible thing. But if we erase it, would we then forget how horrible war and other things really are?

[/ramble]
 

JoNightshade

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Deleting my memories of all the stupid, idiotic things I did would be pointless. Mainly because I would continue to do stupid, idiotic things, and my mind would dwell on them just as much as it likes to dwell on my past idiocy already. Which is to say, far too much. The problem for me is not the memories themselves, but my brain's penchant for dredging them up and replaying them over and over.
 

Shadow_Ferret

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Well, my favorite quote from Star Trek was when Kirk said, "I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!"

So take it for what it's worth. I hadn't read the actual story when I posted. I didn't realize they were ERASING memories. I thought we were talking about the ability to go back and change things

I've sort of grown accustomed to my memories. I think a blank spot would be really annoying. Especially since I seem to have more and more of those every day anyway.
 

Pagey's_Girl

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The bit about phobias is the one thing I could see that might be useful - of course, the whole problem with my huge phobia growing up - thunderstorms - is that I can't quite remember the storm that started it. I have, somewhere in my mind, a vague memory of being quite young and lying on the grass in the side yard, pretending to be a big girl reading a book (it was a folding picture frame) and suddenly things getting all dark and my mom saying we had to go in. That's all. Now, from what I've been told, that storm turned out to be the mother of all electrical storms, to the point where a well-timed bolt of lightning must have hit the power lines, because it caused a surge that shattered almost every lightbulb in the house and sent sparks and flames spewing from the outlets. (That may be exaggerated; I don't know why or how the house is still standing if that was the case.) From then on, even the slightest hint of a darkening sky would send me into an absolute incoherient panic. I still haven't entirely conquered my fear of storms, but I can at least remain outwardly calm and functional during them now - usually.

And now that I'm thinking about it, sometimes it's not so much the things we remember that screw us up, but those ingrained thought patterns and habits that we've fallen so far into that we don't even think about why we feel that way or do what we do - we just mindlessly do what we always have. Some snide remark that someone made that hit you at the wrong time, and you ended up internalizing it to the point where you believed it, and keep playing it over and over in your head. Something you tried to do that didn't workout the first time, so now you think you can't do it and you haven't tried since. Maybe it's not so much forgetting everything that we need to do but remembering it and putting it in its proper place, and going on from there...

And I have a feeling that didn't make a bit of sense....
 

Adam Israel

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Awesome movie. I think that kind of technology has selective uses, like PTSD (rape victims, sexual abuse, etc) but personally I would never do it. My mistakes and trauma have defined my character and made me who I am.
 

truelyana

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I really enjoyed this movie when I first saw it, and now own the dvd. I find the movie taps into the real mentality of a person. I find the memory acts as the backhand to understand the real truths of how a person perceives themself and the world whilst their in a relationship. The film is a reflection of the mind, as it entails all the different angles one feels when another person is present in their lifes, and throws in real questions and that is why there is such diversity of thoughts and ideas involved.
 

maestrowork

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I know people having Alzheimer's, so I know it really is a horrible thing. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Sometimes I would forget something and I couldn't remember no matter how I tried -- I absolutely HATE THAT. I'll take all my memories, good ones and bad ones, and the not so exciting ones with me to my grave. Thank you very much.

(And I'm sure to make more and more in the time I shall still be alive)
 

Bartholomew

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I can think of ten or eleven things I'd happily delete.
 

Phoebe H

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I come at it from the other end of things.

I have some blank spots in my memory from when I was younger, and have gotten very contradictory reports as to what may or may not have happened around those times.

Which makes it all sound very mysterious, when it probably isn't. I have chosen to believe that there is nothing *to* remember. But when you start having to think about yourself in terms of what you *believe* instead of in terms of what *is*, it changes everything.

It is always better, I think, to know.
 

willfulone

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I recognize joy in smaller things for I learned how to look for them due to my past. To find a way to live past and through it, I had to find happiness and joy where I could and cling to them. The little joys that often go unnoticed? I see them. I see rainbows in dew on flower petals and such. And those things? They take my breath away - everytime.

I feel freer for having been confined. Not sure how free others feel, but unless freedom is taken, it is hard to explain how I can appreciate it the way I do now.

I have met evil, fought it and lived. I can now spot it a mile away. I would never wish to give that gift away.

I am more honest (not more than anyone specifically - just an internal thing I speak on) than I may have been as I had to lie for so long to keep a secret horror. I do not lie. EVER. I cannot.

I can see hurt in others that they can hide from even their best friends and family members. It is a look, a feel. I can see it and I can feel it. And I am certain it is for I spot the way my heart felt when I was feeling the same. I spot the look. It is the look I see in the few photos that were ever taken of me in my youth. There is a look. And I can spot that look for knowing that feeling and having seen what I looked like when I was "lost" and "hurting" too.

I can be strong in any emergency situation and know what to do. Now, this may have been true if I did not have my past. But, I believe resolve and strength I needed to survive and some of the things I was exposed to allow me to not "react" but just do what is necessary when it is. Most people can probably claim the same. I am just saying (for me) that I believe it is due (in part - large part) to my past.

I love with abandon. I do not hold reserve and I do not use love as a weapon (not saying anyone else does - but I did live it with the ones I knew as a child).

I do not play mind games or games with people's feelings. I do not believe in "tit for a tat". I cannot - not when I know how badly it felt to me to have it done all those years.

I could go on. But, won't. But when faced with such a question "would I if I could?"

No. No, I would not give up anything that has shaped me. And, I take pride in the fact that I am who I am IN SPITE of my past traumas and the problems I had to face and conquer to survive.

I would not change a thing. (Except I would be taller)

Christine
 

poetinahat

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Heck no. I have enough hubris anyway; imagine if I thought I'd never made a mistake!

Erasing memories of mistakes would be the end of empathy and tolerance. At the very least, my children deserve a dad who knows he's made their mistakes too.