Memories don’t fit like a hand in a sequined glove. There are no shut drawers or watertight compartments or cartons to capture Memory A, as opposed to the bleak and distant Memory B. We’ll never even know why A weighs more than B. In fact, both of them could be as different as chalk and cheese, and still be engaged in a rapturous pillow fight on the mental landscape at exactly the same time as a fortune teller sits describing your non-existent future, while you stare at the blank, harsh daylight of the present, right outside your window. Sometimes you ‘choose’ A over B—you ‘allow’ a certain flimsy memory regarding a sad, broken street urchin smiling across the coconut-water counter for no reason, to weigh heavier than the traumatic memory of an exam. Something will come up and you’ll forget the urchin again. He’ll be gone in an instant, replaced by something more painful. Perhaps the memory of a horrible meal at an overly-expensive café, overlooking (not some beautiful Riviera) but the broken roads of Satya clogged with stinking sewage water in the monsoon. So it happens. And it’s okay; we’ll move on. We’ll forget the memories A and B, but not quite in the same way. Their shapes and sizes will remain impressed indelibly on our prefrontal cortex or whatever. Is this why some things are painful to talk about—all because of our dashed gamut of ‘memories’?
The only constant is that there are no rules.
But it makes sense. Makes sense all the time.
I think that human beings forget nothing, simply because we have the power to pick and choose. We ‘choose’ to text someone, or to not do it. To call someone or to not pick up the phone. To read motivational stuff online or to stay away from social media. We choose to give importance to some people and then, pretending to ‘forget’ them, we ‘move on’. But the dashed, obstinate memories remain where they ought to be. And when that memory A or B takes over, we can scarcely look at ourselves in the mirror and lie. We could forget that memory, but not the shape and size and feel of it; that we were the ‘creators’ of such a memory in the first place.
And that’s why nothing is the same when you or I ‘choose’ to ignore the trivial flashing of our phone’s screen. Nothing is quite alright.
(Image credits: abscfreepics)
