Somehow there are a faces you don’t want to see… for instance, there is this yesteryear actresses’ daughter who tries to strut out of her mother’s legacy in an attempt to establish her own presence; yet, the sad thing is that she neither has the essence nor the stuff that her mother had; no, not one bit and every time I see her on the screen, I flick the screen as if in auto-mode and if she appears on some magazine cover, not by her merit but through her PR efforts, I flip the magazine into the nearest garbage bag… where I think she rightfully belongs. 

Another instance that I recall, while talking about puking at the memory of a person was someone I admired quite intimately - who at one point of time, a long, long time ago, made me forget my name… once. Cursed with chemosensory memory, I remember people and recollect events through olfactory stimulation and I distinctly remember this person’s smell… a concoction of talc mixed with cheap, teenager’s deodorant. After years, while straying in the aisles of a supermarket, the same mixture of talc and deo filled the air – must be someone who tried to sample the concoction, leaving behind the trail… by now, what once enchanted me, disgusted me. Looking for the nearest exit, in a frantic attempt I rushed out and threw up. 

Memories can be delicate and dangerous – a double-edged sword – can slay the reaper as well as cut the keeper. How I wish we had a pen drive-type memory box instead of the God-given hippocampus… to turn on and off memories that we wish to keep, restore or destroy completely at our will.

The sad part of memory is that unlike energy, memories, can be created as well as destroyed… never replaced. Yet, the memories attempted to be replaced, filters through the phenomenon of truth; where an enforced lie cannot replace or gaslight memory. Memory, is personal, is internal and uninfluenced as this storehouse sits comfortably relying to be influenced by amygdala - the powerhouse of emotions; emotions, that spurs out of experiences - both painful and pleasurable that are personal. This wiring of God, is irreplacable. A dark tunnel that allows only the keeper to enter, explore and exit. 

The very common mistake that people do, is when in a superficial mode to overcome a strong overpowering emotion, thrust an external pressure to convince a person that the memory they hold is incorrect and subject a person to their perspective of what the other’s memory has to be. But why would anyone try to replace another person’s memory? Well, it could be a passively jealous sister-in-law, a conniving lawyer, a greedy mother, a purposeless brother, a corrupt family that may see the pinnacle of selfishness as the crux of success or even an aimless therapist who for reason’s (only) their own, recreate a world that suits their convenience for their victim. But then, truth cannot be destroyed. Though reciprocatively one may agree superficiously for the influencer’s sake, truth, when suffered, erupts when one needs peace the most. At the end of the day, our mind effortlessly remembers what is true and was experienced rather than an enforced effort to replace it with a lie to grab things beyond our reach. Truth, will set you free.