You have been erased from someone's memory...

How many times in your life have you wanted to erase something from your life: mistakes you've made, relationships that ended badly, memories that cause you pain? That is what makes "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" a brilliant movie. It makes the idea of erasing the parts of life that hurt a reality.

The title of the movie comes from a poem by Alexander Pope, which reads:
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd." The concept behind this movie is universal, causing every viewer to relate on some level. It is easy to say that we wish we could erase all of the ugly parts of our mind that we don't want anyone to see; the parts that humiliate us, anger us, or cause that deep-set pain in your stomach, but don't those memories provide us with an education? If it were not for relationships past, or consequences we have had to face, or a number of other trials we have all been through, we would not have a sturdy foundation beneath our feet. If a machine could miraculously take away the bad, wouldn't it, in turn, take away the good as well?

I think of all the things I would want erased, but if they were all gone I would lose the connections to some of the best moments in my life. This idea can be illustrated through landscaping. There are several bushes in my front yard, and last summer, many of the branches began to turn brown and die. I found a website that showed me exactly how these bushes needed to be trimmed in order to remove the "diseased" parts without affecting the bush as a whole. If you cut out the diseased parts correctly, the bush would thrive and replenish itself over time. If you cut away the dead parts incorrectly, the entire bush would die. The way I relate this to the idea of erasing memories is this: If we haphazardly had our worst memories erased, or tried to erase them ourselves, all of the good memories that stemmed from those bad would be erased as well, killing our minds. However, if we are careful, we can eliminate the surface memories of the things that hurt us, while keeping the redeeming memories. It is impossible to wipe out all of the bad, without erasing some of the good. We need to learn how to deal with the bad, in order to see how those moments have provided us with good memories we may not have otherwise.

Here is another example to show how erasing the bad can erase the good:
One of the most painful experiences in life is the death of a loved one. It is easy to say that we do not want to remember the moments leading up to the end. We don't want to think of them sick or hurting or laying in a hospital. We do not want to think about anything surrounding his or her actual death. However, if we chose to erase those memories like Joel does in "Eternal Sunshine", the person would disappear completely. It would get rid of the ugly, but it would also rob us of the beautiful: the moments of laughter, late night conversations, holidays, etc.

I think this movie intrigues me so much because of its universality, but it also puts things into perspective. It is ludicrous to think we can erase our pain. Dealing with it makes us stronger, and in the most chaotic situations, beauty can emerge.