Friday, June 04, 2010

Memory

Memory. Without it, we probably wouldn't exist. It is because of memory that we know who we are and our place in this world. We are shaped not just by our genes, but also by our surrounding environment, and the way it shapes us, is because of our memory. We remember all that goes on around us and are profoundly affected by it, whether we realise it at the time or not.

But sometimes, memory is a curse. There are of course, many things that happen in our lives that we just wish we could forget about completely and banish from our memory forever, but that cannot be. It is these memories that scar us for life, and permanently imprint themselves into our cerebral cortex. We cannot voluntarily forget about those memories, no matter how much we try. Our memory stores those moments and events, but no matter how much of a conscious effort we may make to ignore them and not recall them, sometimes they inevitably spring into our mind's eye, and along with it, all the anguish, torment, pain and fear that we experienced at that time. It's like reliving that very moment we wished we had never gone through. Like going to hell and back again.

But then again, memories shape us, and who we are. No matter what may go on in our lives, if we didn't have a memory, we wouldn't be who we are; we wouldn't grow as people and change; we wouldn't feel pain, love, hate, loss, grief and all the other emotions that every human being experiences. In other words, without memory, we can't call ourselves human.

As the old saying goes, time heals all wounds. Is it true? Perhaps. But the scars left behind remain with us forever.