Wednesday 1 June 2011

Forgive, yes. Forget, why?

Ever since i can remember, i've heard these words from numerous sources and for numerous reasons and situations. Yeah okay i do get the underlying funda and am an ardent believer in Forgiving and moving on. It's the second part of the advice that stumps me. Forget? And how does one purport to do that? After giving it some thought, my cerebral part came up with the following scenarios:

1. Zap your memory. Exterminate. Abrogate. Annihilate. Use lasers or what you may. Game over.
2. Run to the same Doctor who Kate Winslet turned to in 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind', get those funky wires and gizmos hooked to your body and turn your mind, well, spotless.
3. Or is it meant in a holier manner where you train your mind to 'forget' the wrong/untoward situation and not give it any more significance in your life and simply confine it to the folds of time? You know, 'jaane de yaar'..
4. If at all, 'forgetting' is a feat possible in itself by mere exertion of will, then isn't it a part of the first act i.e Forgiving itself? Both involve a certain sense of renunciation and to my mind, the latter is a subset of the former.
5. What do you do when you're an Elephant??

Scanning the aforementioned alternatives for a degree of possibility and consequential credibility, my meter reads zero in favour of Forgetting. You just can't do it! The whole idea seems entirely hypothetical. UFOs would probably come up with a more substantial stand. Especially for Taureans like yours truly who seem to remember even the most inconsequential nuances of existence. Yours and mine.


For a moment, let's just imagine that being granted some super human powers, i or you or any one of us does manage to Forget, then what? Isn't that a whole fragment of your life gone waste? Isn't it memory only which allows us to learn? To cite a very basic example, a child suffers a slight burn in her act of inquisitiveness with a candle. So the ever-so-kind mother makes her 'forget' the painful experience. Now the next time, the child goes playing with the flame again, devoid of that 'memory', she faces the heat again. Not a wise move eh? Now this was quite a literal situation, but i hope you get the hang of it.


I firmly believe that anything under the sun, can serve a purpose, to anyone, if only we care to look carefully. So once we forget, that occurrence fails to contribute anything to our lives except remnants of traumatizing efforts to do the same. How utterly futile. And how unwise of us to let a part of our lives extinguish itself like this.
The way i see it, Forgive, but do not Forget. Or you'll be hurt again, the cycle will repeat itself. Doesn't make too much sense to learn, unlearn and then relearn the same thing over and over and over. Doesn't show me any scope for evolving.
Like i read somewhere, Forgiving changes the perspective (and life). Forgetting loses the lesson.
And please think of the poor Elephants once.

And today's song, aptly, is Bon Jovi's 'you wanna make a memory'. ;-)


Hello again, it’s you and me
Kinda always like it used to be
Sippin' wine, killing time
Trying to solve life’s mysteries.
How’s your life, it’s been a while
God it’s good to see you smile
I see you reaching for your keys
Looking for a reason not to leave.

If you don’t know if you should stay
If you don’t say what’s on your mind
Baby just, breathe there’s no where else tonight we should be-
You wanna make a memory.

I dug up this old photograph
Look at all that hair we had
It’s bittersweet to hear you laugh
Your phone is ringing, I don’t wanna ask.

If you go now, I’ll understand
If you stay, hey, I got a plan
You wanna make a memory
You wanna steal a piece of time
You could sing a melody to me
And I could write a couple lines
You wanna make a memory.

If you don’t know if you should stay
And you don’t say what’s on your mind
Baby just, breathe there’s no where else tonight we should be-
You wanna make a memory
You wanna steal a piece of time
You could sing a melody to me
And I could write a couple lines
You wanna make a memory
You wanna make a memory...

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