Never Forget, Never Heal
I rarely look through my phone’s photo album. Like a junk drawer, it’s just there. But after my dog left this world into whatever realm comes next, I started to take a peek here and there. Again and again. Far more than I’ve ever stared at a screen for anything useful. I scroll through it on the bus, on the train, and anytime I have a few idle moments. I'm a junkie to that junk drawer.
At one point, I noticed a small icon in the corner of one of the photos, shaped like a target. I had never noticed it before. I did not know what it was until I touched it, and suddenly the static image started moving, a few frames of motion stitched into what I had thought was just a photo. And just like that... in a heartbeat, my throat closed and the tears came without warning, dragging me into a silence I could not escape. Seeing him like that makes me feel close to him again, as if he is nearby, but just out of reach. It felt as if he existed in that strange space between memory and code.
My wife explained that it’s a feature called “live mode” and that I didn’t bother to toggle it off. I’ll spare you the explanation, as I’m confident you’re already more familiar with it than I am.
That discovery, or rather my encounter with ‘live’ mode, compelled me to introspect on the relationship between memory and technology. I wonder if this is about innovation in technology itself, or the evolution of the camera as a tool, or the advancement of communication as a whole, or if we are deliberately re-engineering forgetting or, "the ability to forget."
Operating systems and software have the ability to purge their cache to stay efficient, yet the same humans who program this efficiency also code features that trap us in endless loops of recollection. We grant machines the ability to forget, while we deny ourselves that same grace, locking our minds in an unbroken cycle. It's an undeniable paradox.
I strongly believe memory is the legacy of being human, a benediction from the cosmos in the grand scheme of humanity. It binds us irrevocably to time and to the sum of our experiences. I also believe it carries a weight of unwritten responsibility that we all struggle to comprehend.
Forgetting allows us to sleep. It allows us to move on. It allows us to love again. And I think it’s often unappreciated for its wisdom because somewhere in humanity’s timeline (I think it was with the invention of apps, thank you, Mr. Jobs, and once again, no, there is not an app for everything, nor is there a need for one) we collectively decided it was uncool.
No one wishes to remain forever bound to an emotional umbilical cord. And yet, how does one learn to sever it? How does one discover the act of healing, when the machinery of our own invention, in its omnipresence, refuses to grant even the modest grace of forgetting?
Which brings me to a troubling thought, that we are training our minds to never forget and, in that very act, denying them the mercy of healing. The idea of infinite memory. A mind that never forgets. It sounds elegant...
But the truth is, we already have infinite memory. It’s buried in the architecture of our cognition. We just can’t reach most of it. What we’re chasing these days isn’t storage. No sir! We’re chasing access. We are chasing infinite recall or Total Recall, except it’s no longer sci-fi fantasy, but the horror of remembering everything, for-fucking-ever.
The evolutionary pressure valve that kept us in check is breaking down as we surrender ourselves to the tyranny of infinite memory. We are built to forgive and forget, to soften life’s blows and curveballs. But these days, we hold on. We replay every memory instead of letting mercy do its work. Every photo, every text we preserve clogs the emotional umbilical cord, turning it into a noose of grief that we choke on.
And the worst part is that it makes you feel guilty, as if forgetting even a detail of the love somehow diminishes its value. As if letting go meant the erasure of the relationship. The choking cuts off the oxygen required for healing, and as a result it dies in the dark, starved of mercy. A mind that forgets nothing… heals nothing.
Thanks for reading,
V.