Partial sunshine of the spot-filled mind

One of my favorite movies of all time is Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Basic plot:

A couple undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour, but it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.

Awesome tagline:

I already forget how I used to feel about you.

So anyway, giving credence to the idea that there really is a pill for everything, it appears that scientists in the UK have developed a pill that promises to selectively erase painful memories. Woah, talk about redefining the human condition. As one medical ethics lecturer in London put it: "Removing bad memories is not like removing a wart or a mole. It will change our personal identity since who we are is linked to our memories."

Everyone has their personal traumas and demons. I know I have mine, and I've never met a person who didn't suffer from some dark memory. But I don't think I could give them up. I wouldn't say that personal identity is "linked to our memories". I would say that they are entirely comprised of our memories. Any sort of present awareness is transitory, slipping into the past in less than nanoseconds. The only thing that connects these isolated moments to a personal identity, a sense of self, is memory.

The question, instead, is whether bad memories have good value. That's a really tough call. Imagine, really, an eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. I mean, it's called the human "condition" for a reason. It's nearly impossible to even think about a complete bliss. The best we could even consider, if we're being honest about it, is a near-bliss. I think we need our bad memories in some way to be human.

Maybe a partial sunshine of the spot-filled mind is spot on, and being half-miserable is being full-human.

(See also Memento, where a man suffering from short-term memory loss has to rely on tattooing important things on his body to cling to a sense of self.)