What if I forgot?
I’m listening to the song ‘Amnesia’ by 5 Seconds To Summer. And I just read the book ‘Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac’ by Gabrielle Zevin. So now they got me thinking:
What if I forgot a portion of my life? What if I couldn’t remember the past year? What if I forgot everything I’ve ever experienced? What if I had amnesia?
I could start a pros and cons chart of having amnesia. But I’ll just let imaginations run wild for a moment. (Cue showing my theatre side)
Let’s imagine a few scenarios with an added twist at the end:
- You lost total memory of the past month, but you remember how you lost your memory. In this scenario, you remembered that you lost your memory because someone pushed you down the stairs deliberately.
- You lost total memory of the past year, but you remember only 12 days. Possibly one day for each month of the year, but you have no way of telling — you only have the memory of 12 days in the past year.
- You lost total memory of the past decade, but you remember who was present in your life. You remember him or her as a person — their personalities, their looks, their mannerisms, but not where or when or how you met him or her, and, more importantly, who he or she is to you.
- You lost total memory of your entire life thus far, but you remember only the day before. You don’t remember the day before the day before, only the day before.
Now there are endless scenarios that I can conjure, but like I said: let imaginations run wild and that was what I did. That was a fun mental exercise — why?
The idea of amnesia is so entertaining and magical. It’s like saying: let’s forget everything and start anew.
If I had amnesia, I would be able to forget the hauntingly embarrassing moments in life. I would be able to forget puberty. I would be able to forget the people that have hurt me. I would be able to start over, not just change-my-wardrobe-lose-some-weight-total-makeover start over, but to really start over and figure myself out.
But if I had amnesia, I could forget the amazing sleepovers with my friends where all we did was play Wii games all night. I could forget what I learnt in school. I could forget the presents that people had given to me and what the presents really meant, like all the inside jokes and memories attached to that present. I could forget what I liked and disliked eating so I have to restart all over the food-loving or food-hating knowledge.
If I had amnesia, would I still be the same person? Would I still like sleepovers with only Wii games all nights? Would I still enjoy theatre in school? Would I still love durian?
Probably. But most probably not. Because those traits of likes and dislikes are inextricably tied to the memories that you have. I enjoy the Wii so much because of the sleepovers where I bonded with my girls. I love theatre because I’ve been in school productions and enjoyed taking that well-deserved curtain call. I love durians because my parents loved it so much that finally after 8 years of enduring the pungent smell, I learnt to embrace the uniqueness of the durian.
But then again, these could just be within me. I could innately love Wii games. I could just love theatre no matter whatever happens because I was destined to fall in love with it anyway. It could be pre-programmed by of genetics that I would love durian.
Could. Possibly. Maybe. Perhaps.
Being an amnesiac is all about uncertainties that I personally cannot describe and empathise — I can only hypothesise. Maybe someday I can understand these uncertainties. But I hope that, God-willing, I will be able to remember all the beautiful and ugly that was given to me the past 19 years. As for now, I can only entertain the idea of amnesia, the scarily enchanting idea of a blank slate.