The Blue Pill (Revisited)

OK, I have to admit that I can still crack a smile at this post from one of my old blogs. While I have no intention of posting a bunch of my old blog posts to A Pirate on the Prairie, I decided to share this pre-Valentine’s Day 2016 post. I figured that it summed up how at least a few other people may feel when they look back at a really painful past relationship that, unfortunately, cannot be removed from one’s memory short of a lobotomy or a traumatic brain injury. Well, that or opting to give up some memories to implant a digital storage device in one’s skull.

I recently rewatched the cyberpunk movie Johnny Mnemonic starring Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Dina Meyer, Ice-T, and Henry Rollins. Set in 2021, Keanu’s character, Johnny, is a mnemonic courier that carries people’s sensitive data within a cybernetic implant in his head. To make room for the implant, Johnny forfeits memories of his childhood.

“I had to dump a chunk of long-term memory.” — Keanu Reeves as Johnny in Johnny Mnemonic

Johnny has plans to get a full surgical restoration of his long-term memory and get back his forgotten childhood. Given the opportunity, would I delete the memory of a painfully bad relationship? I don’t know. Maybe. I suppose that it would depend upon a number of factors such as whether I felt that the lessons learned and the memories of the good times outweighed the painful memories.

Pain is an odd thing. In the midst of pain, the sensation can be all-encompassing. It can take our breath away. Yet the intensity and all-encompassing nature of pain can be somewhat forgotten with the passage of time. This is particularly true with physical pain. Emotional pain though can be triggered by remembering a painful event or through ruminating on bad times. You might think back on a broken bone and remember that you were in agony. But the memory probably won’t bring you to your knees. Unpleasant memories of an event or relationship that led to intense emotional pain can do just that even years or decades later.

While even a really painful past relationship almost certainly had some good times, if you would consider erasing the memory of the relationship, you have seriously questioned the idea that the good times outweighed the bad. But what about all the other positive memories that might bookend the bad ones? What about other happy events and relationships that occurred around the same time? Would you be willing to possibly give up those memories too if necessary? How would the holes in your memory affect you? Would you yearn for answers? Would a reassurance that you are not missing anything be enough? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

As I mentioned above, the decision to remove a traumatic relationship from one’s memory (were such a thing possible) would require some sober calculation. Would you be happier having never known the person? Maybe. Maybe not. I suspect that much would depend upon how seamless the process was. If I was haunted by fragments of memories and the gaps in my memory like portrayed in Johnny Mnemonic, I could imagine that the yearning for answers could pose a comparable torment and create a desire to regain what I lost. If the process were relatively seamless as portrayed in The Matrix and the rare perception of déjà vu was the only clue that there was a forgotten world that I couldn’t see or recall, it might be be preferable to living life as one of the walking wounded and emotionally damaged.

One last consideration could be one’s belief in a higher power or that things happen for a reason. I believe in an omniscient and omnipotent God. In God’s grand plan, what right would I have to remove that person from my experience and my memory? Didn’t He place this person in my path? Or would removing someone’s memory be any different than removing a thorn from my finger and treating any subsequent infection? I don’t know aside from the knowledge that such a means of deliberately erasing one’s memory is still the domain of science fiction. And that might hold the answer to the question as to the will of a higher power. Perhaps we are meant to accept life as it comes to us and to accept the good with the bad.

At least for now, the idea of erasing painful memories is nothing more than an interesting hypothetical question with some philosophical concerns. And in the future? Who knows?

👇😁 [original post]

The Blue Pill

“Why oh why didn’t I take the BLUE pill?”

Ever have a relationship that ended so badly and the other person treated you so cruelly that you wished that you could go back to that point in time before you met that person and “un-meet” them? Me too. 😉