Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Do you remember that time...

I was reading this pair of articles about a woman who can remember her entire life in explicit detail, as if the events happened that same day, regardless of how long ago it really was. I would imagine she has something wrong with her ability to prune memories. She doesn't have a perfect memory though -- she has trouble with rote memorization.

This got me thinking -- would I want this ability? I mean, we could be arguing about something that happened a year ago, and I could tell you in explicit detail everything about that day, and you couldn't argue back, because you would know I am right. And I would totally kick butt in the History questions in Trivial Pursuit, as long as they were about stuff that happened during my lifetime.

The question is, would anyone want to hang around me? Would you want to be with someone who remembers every detail of their life and their interaction with you, including all the times you were mean to them. Would you want to be around someone who could always bring up things in the past, things you would rather everyone forgot? Would you want to be around someone who was always beating you at Trivial Pursuit?

And would I want to remember everything, including all of those things that depress me?