“Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.”
― Kahlil Gibran

Up until a couple of days ago, I used to think my forgetfulness was a curse. I’m sure I’m not the only one. But then, I was sitting in my psychology class, not really listening to what my Teacher was saying but at some point I started to pay Attention. She was Talking about what psychology really is and the areas covered under it. 

She was talking about different kind of mind processes; One of which is remembering. She said that forgetting is an essential part of our lives and it is imperative for the functioning of our brains. To that I thought, ‘What could possibly be with being able to remember?’.

She went on to talking about a Russian man called Solomon Shereshevskii. He was the man who could never forget. His memory was so flawless that he could remember each minute of his life in graphic detail.

At first, as my teacher started, it sounded incredible. But, as she went on, things were not quite the same. Because of his ability to never forget, his mind became riddled with irrelevant facts. He had problems recalling which facts were important and which were not. He also had trouble recognizing faces of people he had known for a long time and identifying voices of people over the telephone. This inability to place different faces and voices was because his mind paid acute attention to details and even the slightest change left him muddled. Some of his memories even started to spill out at unexpected times:

“One time I went to buy some ice cream… I walked over to the vendor and asked her what kind of Ice Cream she had. ‘Fruit ice cream,’ she said. But she answered in such a tone that a whole pile of coals, of black cinders, came bursting out of her mouth, and I couldn’t bring myself to buy any ice cream after she had answered in that way …”

After knowing and reading more about him, I am glad that I’m forgetful. Before knowing all of this, the quote given at the start of this post, claiming forgetfulness to be form of freedom, never made sense to me. But now, it does and it makes me feel proud to be forgetful even though people believe to be a disadvantageous thing.

And I know that still, that there is a stage that exists between this kind of memory and my forgetfulness, also known to be the ideal state but I’m still happy to be forgetful. And so should you.

Alas, we’re only human.