Funny what can get me to thinking about something. Paycheck was a ghastly movie, probably not worth the $6.25 I paid to see it, but it got me to thinking about memory and what constitutes “a good life.”
Early on in the film Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is conversing with his friend and all-around assistant Shorty (Paul Giamatti) after having had two months worth of memories erased upon completion of a project. In response to a question about whether or not he’s ever curious about what gets erased Jennings replies to the effect that his life is a highlight reel. He remembers the good stuff, baseball games, birthday parties, dinners with friends, and the boring stuff (work) just falls away; what could be better is Jennings’ attitude. On its face it sounds like a good deal: only remember the good stuff. I don’t think it’s quite that simple.
Life is, to a greater or lesser degree, both logistically and emotionally complex for most people. Would it really be easier if we could only remember the good stuff? Or is the reality that we actually learn more from the things that are painful, learn about our limits, learn our likes and dislikes, test our mettle, than we do from the joyous events in our lives?
Maybe it’s just me, my particular outlook on life, but most of the “lessons” I’ve ever learned have been a direct result of some painful event. This is not to say that everything I’ve ever learned has some sort of pain attached to it (how horrible would that be?), but a lot of the really important stuff does. Or maybe it’s just that I remember those lessons, that those observations about how human society works stuck so much harder simply because they had pain attached to them. After all, Skinner and his plates proved that pain aversion is a learned response. Wouldn’t it then, make sense, for us to remember things that were painful more vividly than we remember things that are pleasant?
I’ve had my own brush with memory loss and you know what, it’s probably the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. The not knowing what went on even though, I’m told, I interacted coherently with a number of people. Twenty or so minutes of my life just gone. Would I want the memory of that time if I could have it? Absolutely, pain and all. After all, it was my experience and I deserve to learn from it.
So I guess the real question is: Is a life more than the sum of its parts (memories)?
Just something to entertain me while Ben Affleck looked bored.
Uh – Skinner and his plates? Aversion a learned response? Doesn’t ring a bell – tho in times long past I read a lot of Skinner.
But to the main topic – better to have memories of as much as possible, or to hold onto only the peaks? I agree I prefer the former. However, memory is such a dynamic process – not just a locked up storehouse where nothing changes until someone goes rummaging through it. I’ve found, upon reflection, that seemingly ordinary times and events were really quite lovely, and periods I thought were fine bring on mental dry heaves when I read through my journals.
Even facts change – I think memory, mine at least, tries to regularize things. For example from my year in Boston several decades ago I “remember” Boston Common as pretty much square. But one glance at a map recently showed me that that was just memory patting everything into neat shapes.
Still and all – I’d rather remember than not, and this is one reason why I also have kept journals for years.