I Wish That Lacuna, Inc. Actually Exists. I Wish To Forget.
Note: There are spoilers here for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, go watch it if you haven’t. I mean seriously, it’s a masterpiece. Go. Now.
Welcome to Lacuna, Inc.
If you have the chance to just forget a part of your life, would you? Would you delete a memory that has been haunting you for so long?
Let’s say we live in the world as that of Michel Gondry’s 2004 sci-fi romance movie, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’. For you who haven’t watched the movie (and blatantly ignored the spoiler warning, honestly please watch the movie it’s so good), in this world there exists a firm that you could hire in order to remove any person from your memory. You could delete them from ever existing in your life; all your experiences together, every single conversation both of you have had, and every single reminder of anything that you’ve both shared together. It could just disappear; it could not haunt you anymore.
That’s what both main characters of the movie, Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski did to one another; they chose to forget, and that’s how they tried to move on.
“We met at the wrong time. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. Maybe one day, years from now, we’ll meet in a coffee shop in a far away city somewhere and we could give it another shot.”
Both Joel and Clementine wanted to delete each other from their memories because it was the only way for them to move forward, it’s the only way for them to be able to lose all the pain they experienced when they were together.
In the movie, it was shown that the procedure of removing memories is done at first by mapping the memories they shared together, then simply erasing those recollections. Joel packed every single object, every single item, and every single memento that could remind him of her. After that’s all that’s done, he underwent the procedure, trying to take out her essence from his brain by revisiting all the memories one by one.
By next morning, Joel woke up with no memories of Clementine. He was happy, he could finally move on, and he could live the rest of his days without even recollecting a single memory of his paramour, whom he loved and spent two years of his life with.
Forget, Not Forgive
Sometimes, you just cannot forgive people, right? Not just lovers or people you were romantically involved with; but maybe also acquaintances, friends, or even those who were so close to you that you deem them to be family. Sometimes their sins (and yours) are just too much for you to bear, maybe it’s what you did to them, maybe it’s what they did to you, and sometimes it’s what you did together.
These are manifestations of our disappointment. How disappointed we are of ourselves for doing a certain action, be it hurting other people, or maybe simply bringing shame to ourselves; it’s also how disappointed we are of others, and how we let ourselves to be stupid enough to allow them to do so.
So if most are given the opportunity and access to delete and erase that bit of memory, I think most will take the chance. Some memories are too painful for you to even reminisce, and maybe it’s justified for us to erase those from our heads. The trauma is too painful, and you will start doubting yourself because of all your past mistakes.
I’ve had my share of mistakes; I’ve had my share of sadness and stupidity in my past. It cringes me when it suddenly just appears in my head, and it’s even worse when people remind you of it.
What happens when the doubt and pain began to mount? It turns to paranoia, it eats you alive. You’re going to wonder what people will say about you. You’re going to start cutting people off, you’re going to start closing and shielding yourself from so many others.
Maybe I want to delete these memories.
Isn’t it better to just forget and be happy?
A Requiem for the Past
But we have to remember that, while undergoing the procedure, Joel regretted his decision to delete Clementine forever.
At first, he revisited the bad parts of their relationship; why they broke up, and how miserable it made him felt. But as the movie progresses, he was sent to the early parts of the relationship, where he found happiness and joy. He tried to save and salvage the memories. But alas, what is done can’t be undone.
Clementine too, wanted to erase Joel from her life; she felt tired and suffocated, she just wanted to be free and to be able to live as herself once more. But once she removed him, she still felt that same sorrow, that same sadness. Instead of gaining clarity, she became even more dejected.
Maybe she wanted to be herself again, so bad that she forgot: he is already a part of her. Even if erased, she still could not remove that part of her that loves and still longs for him.
Both Joel and Clementine believed that they could only find ‘eternal sunshine’ and happiness if they left their mind spotless, without pain, without sorrow. Yet maybe, the movie also tried to tell us that without those feelings of sorrow and anguish, you might not know what happiness and sunshine actually feels like.
While fate is cruel, it is also merciful sometimes. It assembled them both together once more; they met during another time, at another place, and reintroduced themselves to one another. When they finally remembered the past that they shared together, Clementine wanted to stop them both from going down this same road again, thinking that it’ll just lead them to the same misery that had afflicted both of them before. All Joel simply said was “okay”.
He said before he wished that he had stayed, and so this time he would.
He just wanted to be with Clem. And so, the possibility of heartache, the possibility of sorrow, is something that he is willing to risk, if it means that he’ll have her by his side once more.
Clementine and Joel tried to erase each other from their lives, but the movie shows to us that once they met, the same feeling once again sprouts. Maybe in a sense, the movie tried to tell us that feelings could never truly be deleted, it’s simply buried, deep in our minds. And it’s beautiful, because it shows that no matter how much we try to suppress whatever we feel, it’s there anyway, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
And while sometimes I know that you can never reconcile with the person, you can always reconcile with yourself. You can always reconcile with your past actions, with your past sins, your past memories.
Clock ticks, time pass, and people grow. Things that we thought were important and significant then become something that’s barely acknowledged. What seemed to end the world back then becomes not all that important anymore.
Time might not heal all wounds, but time allows us to come to terms with our scars. It hurts, the pain will still be there, and it will ache from time to time. But later you’ll meet people who cares, who understand why the scar is there and why it throbs; they might not heal you, but they’ll help you reconcile with yourself, with every past actions you’ve done, with all the sins and burdens that are currently weighting you down.
It will take time; maybe a really long time for you to open up and to heal, and maybe you’re still keeping it to yourself to this day. But your pain, your mistakes, and what you think people would think about you doesn’t make you who you are; it’s only a part of you, and in fact it makes you much more deserving to be loved, both by yourself, and by others.
You are what you love most about yourself, and you are how you define yourself to be. You are, to an extent, you, despite all these past flaws.
And I think; that everyone who truly loves you will understand these mistakes that you made, and yet they’ll still love and care for you all the same. If not more.
And so, maybe I don’t want to delete and forget.
Maybe, all I want is to be at peace with myself.
And maybe, I should not forget to do so.
