Dr. Nietzsche's Blessed Are The Forgetful?

1. During the procedure, Mary quotes the following line from Nietzsche: “Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.” Yet, each character’s blunder gets the best of him or her in the end. Joel and Clementine must face what each said of the other in the tapes. Mary loses the love she felt toward her work and must face the fact that she has lost part of herself. Dr. Mierzwack must face the pain of losing his wife, furthermore, his wife must see her husband cheating for the second time. Rather than choosing to deal with the painful memory, each chose to avoid it by having it erased. Thus, every one made the same mistakes again and, ultimately, suffer double the pain. In the mind, memories act as a human safety check, …show more content…
Memory removal would be considered a physical procedure; however, it is distinctly different from any other physical procedure. Any cosmetic surgery changes the outside of the body, yet removing memory removes something vital to what makes a person who they are. Memories are essentially another way to describe experiences, but memories have a bigger impact than something only experienced. For example, someone could have the experience of eating Vietnamese food for the first time, yet that likely will not have a major impact. However, a memory sticks with someone for years and is hard to forget, like falling in love. Ultimately, memories and experiences come together to make a person who they are. They will affect how the person thinks, feels, acts, etcetera. A person loses part of who they are when they lose part of their memories. The characters looked lost when they heard the tapes because in their minds, there was no way that was them. Joel and Clementine knew how their relationship would end up because they heard it from the tapes and this affected how Clementine thought of the relationship, however briefly. What this says about our nature is that a human is fundamentally physical; the mind, or brain, and all experience makes us who we are. Every second of life is analyzed by the brain, without it, there would be no such thing as identity in the first …show more content…
It is possible to escape pain by erasing the memory, but only for a brief time. The only way to avoid the pain entirely is to face, accept it, and move on. Removing the memory leaves someone more vulnerable to making the same mistakes and undergoing the pain repeatedly. Essentially, one is sending themselves to his or her own hell by removing the painful memories. Furthermore, they are removing part of who they are. Whether good or bad, each memory has some impact on who we are as a person. For example, children who are abused are often likely to become the abuser. This is because their memory, or experiences, tell them that this is how a person is meant to be treated. Furthermore, children often act a lot like their parents because most of their experience comes from their parents. It would be nonbeneficial to undergo such procedures because suffering is a vital part of human life, no matter how much it is hated. Suffering is what tells a person that a mistake was made, just as happiness tells a person that they made the best choice. Experience is just as vital because it provides the information needed to know how to navigate life. As children, we are all scientists, because we all want to learn and experience the world because without experience, then the world does not make sense. Without experience to tell us about the world and suffering to tell us not to do something, then the same mistakes would be repeated for all our lives. The world has reached its current