Memory.
Art : Vivu.
By Sakuan.
Losing memory…
I recently came to think about this thing.
I never really thought too much about it at first, but now, after experiencing some stuff in life it’s only fair that I write about it.
Memory, when I think about it it makes me sad, there are things that shouldn’t exist in people’s minds, there are thoughts and memories that shouldn’t be present in anybody’s mind let alone a child or a young person. Thoughts like shooting up a school shouldn’t exist in a teenager’s mind, the memory of being raped or molested when you were young shouldn’t be in one’s mind, the memory of seeing someone getting killed in front of you, shouldn’t exist in a child’s head, the memory of losing a child shouldn’t exist in a parent’s head, a serial killer’s thoughts shouldn’t be there in the first place, the memory of being abused shouldn’t be in your head at all.
It’s sad that people have these memories and thoughts, our greatest gift as living beings is the gift of conscience, yet it can be the worst thing ever. This tends to be a recurring thing, where a great thing turns out to bring out the worst of things. Money is a good example, you can do a lot of good with money and you can also do a lot of bad things with money, unimaginable things. Memory is the best gift anyone could have, to some the worst gift, especially if tragedy strikes you in an unfair way.
It’s complicated to have a brain with consciousness. I know I’ve talked about how it isn’t fair for certain memories to be in one’s head. In the same breath there’s something called dementia and I feel for people who go through this, especially when it comes out of nowhere and you didn’t get the opportunity to prepare yourself for it, it’s sad. All the good memories in your life gone, just like that, all the things you’ve ever known gone, just like that.
Questions, I have a lot of questions and wonders as to what happens in a situation like this…
What happens to those you love? Do you wake up one morning and feel like you’re in a stranger’s house? I can only imagine the toll that would take on your significant other, they still see you as you, the man or woman they loved dearly but in your eyes, they’re a stranger, this might just be one of the saddest things one could experience.
Memory loss has to be one of the saddest things one could go through and I feel for anyone who goes through this, whether it’s happening to you or to someone you love. I can’t imagine waking up one morning and feeling like I’m all alone, no family, no friend, no one to lean over to when I’m in pain, ALONE. Seeing people take care of you, and to you they’re strangers and that means the trust that was accumulated over the years isn’t there anymore, so you’re always on edge, the love isn’t there, you get spooked every time you see them, the reason being they’re acting like they know and care for you but you don’t know any of them.
It’s like you’re a dead man walking when you lose your memory and the worst part about it is that it’s not a one-time thing. In some cases, you don’t get to lose everything then rebuild a new set of memories that stock. The losing part is a recurring thing. You can wake up the next day and forget everything you did the previous day, you’re no different from a newborn. I’m trying to understand what these people go through. They have nothing, no frame of reference whatsoever, and it’s weird because most of these patients with memory loss can still talk, so the memory of language is still there but most of the other important things are gone. I can’t imagine waking up one morning and not remembering any of my family let alone my own name or everything that I’ve created. Not knowing what I was fighting for, not knowing anything about me, not knowing the struggles I had gone through, not having a frame of reference for what a smile felt like, and the worst of all not knowing my daily routine. It’s like being famous in a sense, where a lot of people know you but you don’t know any of them. Of course, even in moments like these, there are still people who would want to take advantage of the situation, they might tell you things that aren’t true, they might give you a bad frame of reference, but that’s a story for another day. Memory loss could just be one of the worst curses that has ever set foot on the human body, the sadness, I can only imagine.
On the other hand, there’s knowing too much, this too is a gift and curse. Knowing too much comes from curiosity, and curiosity leads to questioning and when you have questions with answers that don’t make sense to you then you become doubtful and even malevolent in some cases. When the answers to the questions you have don’t make sense you became a non-believer and when I use the word believer it’s not only exclusive to religion. When I think about it, this is why we have conspiracy theories, people tend to come up with reasons, solutions, and answers to questions that make sense to them.
I was born and raised catholic so that’s all I knew growing up, but then I started having questions: If Adam and Eve were the first two people created and they had two children, Cain and Abel, Cain killed Abel, and Cain had kids so where did Cain’s wife come from? The problem with this question, which I understand now, was that the Bible is a book of teachings, things to take lessons from, all these stories aren’t meant to be literal in some sense. That wasn’t taught to many people growing up, including me. I’m assuming questions like these with no defined answers are the reason why a lot of people walk away from religion and try to find a community somewhere else, can you blame them? I follow both science and religion for two different reasons, science gives me the facts which is important, and on the other hand, my morals have to come from somewhere right?
You’d be surprised how many people want to be and do good but don’t know how to.
Then there’s a memory that leads you to hate something. What do I mean by this you might wonder, well, let me give you an example, I hope it’s a good one too.
I once ate a pear fruit when I was sick and I puked, since that experience, I don’t really like pear fruits, don’t get me wrong I can eat them but there’s just something about them that makes my stomach uneasy. I was young when this happened, I was barely nine years old if my memory serves me right, I’m twenty-five now and the feeling is still there, not as vibrant, and heavy as before but the experience still left a stain on me.
That was just but a small example, but there are people out there who go through even more brutal experiences that make them hate things, people, animals, places, and so on. One good common example that’s more relevant today than it should is people who end up hating men or women based on one experience they had with one man or woman. Sometimes I end up asking myself, are they really wrong for doing that? That’s the only frame of reference they have, can we really blame them, some experiences they go through might be harsh. The reality is, even though their feelings are justified that’s not a way to live and the only explanation I can think of for that is, THAT’S LIFE.
I Finished reading [The proposal by Linda Turner] on November 21, 2021. -(Took me 7 days, this was my first book)
I started reading [Agent Undercover by Lynette Eason] on November 22, 2021.
