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November 06, 2006
FrakturedMemoriz
私は勉強します！！
watashiwa benkyou shimasu!!
I studying am!! (sounds yoda-ish, i know)
noticed that 勉強, which means 'study' in Japanese, incidentally and ironically means 'forcefully/unwillingly' in chinese lol...
Anyway that's sort of prelude to my Jap-induced-and-influenced blog entry triggered by a certain seemingly uneventful yet meaningful incident i happened to be involved with this afternoon.
It is also a prelude hinted by the structurally incorrect title that reflects the state of the author's mind.
While i was studying, something that bugged me for the whole afternoon after a visit to Westminster Village (a hospice) and 3 hours of death note and suzumiya haruhi just fired an action potential which bounced into a chain of information transfer that drove my neurotic mind into a state of active questioning.
What if the next day my memory failed and i can't remember a thing?
Memories are what we hold onto to remember the past events we experienced; joy, sadness, friendship, parent love, sibling banterings, studying for exams, studying for the sake of studying, even those small insignificant things which turn your saddest day 180 degrees, are stored in millions and millions of Myelin sheath-coated, dendrite-connected, electrically-triggered, neurotransmitter-releasing cells we collectively know as the grey matter aka the frontal lobe of our brains.
Incidentally, those cells cannot regenerate.
Therefore, in simple math,
old age = dying cells = memory altered/fractured/lost
I was in the Westminster Village singing songs to some old folks there this afternoon. During a short break, a very nice lady by the name of Margaret strike up a conversation with me. She had silver flowing hair, donned flourishingly white frilled blouse and sleek blue coat, like what air stewardess wore back in the sixties. The fashion, antique as it was, was incomparable to the vast experience she had garnered from her past life traveling to Thailand, India and China, all with his husband on missionaries. Not to mention being a biology teacher. But at one point she kept looking at her analog watch and telling me she was expecting someone to marry later in the afternoon and she had to be excused from the gathering. I thought she's telling the truth, until a worker came along and told her there's no such thing and asked her to stay put instead. I watched her expression of disbelief and confusion upon hearing that.
What if when i am old, my memories became so fractured that i cannot believe what i remembered anymore?
*shudders*
Selective memories happen when we cannot remember everything.
If i can select memories to remember forever, would i want to remember how Yagami Light schemed and plotted to become the new God of the world in 'Death Note' or how odd events turn out for the SOS Brigade members which comprise of a 'God', a human, an alien, a time traveler and an esper in 'The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi'?
Those seemed too trivial to remember if i have constantly-reducing memory storage space.
If i can select memories to remember forever, i would choose to remember my family and all they have done for me; my high school gang who were there for me through thick and thin; my ASEAN gang who went to 'hell' and 'heaven'(aka sentosa trip lol) together with me; my INTEC gang who gave me so many wonderful time together; my ex-girlfriend(s) and girlfriend(s)-to-be =P; and my current Purdue friends.
That's not too much to ask for right?
However, i think i would prefer this alternative option: to do research on stem cells for neuronal regeneration.
Posted by peixin at November 6, 2006 12:06 PM
Comments
make it sound so scary... haha, though sometimes i do wish to let my memory restart. As in, everything is reset, you can redefine urself. Not bad also mar, lolz. Friends can be re-made, everything can be re-done. Though, yah, maybe i'm juz being stupid... Go research stem cells, i support that, no matter what ethics always complicate the issue with... Yah, leave the ethics to the philosophers, u juz kin do the research, hahahaa...
*yah, it is sad when u see people liddat, but the thing is, are they sadder/happier than they used to be?? My grandma has a bit of memory (actually quite serious) loss also, but then, she's now a very much happier old-lady, yah, depends lar...*
Posted by: ls at November 9, 2006 08:00 AM
The Man who Keeps Falling in Love with His Wife
hi px, stumbled upon this article when i was procrastinating :P
Posted by: yangster at November 22, 2006 12:03 PM
Thanks cher yang! i read the whole story and it's very touching..
Posted by: px at November 24, 2006 07:18 AM