In The Matrix: Resurrections, when Neo lost his capacity to discern reality from fiction, Morpheus asked him, “Are memories turned into fiction any less real? Is reality based on memory nothing but fiction?”. This scene got me pondering if our memories are even reality?
The word “nostalgic” is often positively connotated, because when we recall those kinds of memories from the past, we tend to reconstruct them into benevolent scenes. However, during the constructive process of regaining recollection, our brain selects events that are most likely to happen but not what actually happened. Therefore, the memories and nostalgia that we are so fond of are merely beautified images of the past.
CNN had an interview in 2016 with a brain trauma victim, Matthew, who suffered from confabulators — a kind of amnesia which makes a person struggle to tell fact from a fiction concocted by one’s unconscious mind. Matthew told CNN that his brain did not only forget things but it creatively filled in the gaps left by his memory loss. The reporter who conducted the interview, David Robson, said: “His dilemma, although extreme, can help us all understand the frailties of our memories, and the ways our minds construct their own versions of reality”. There are always some people who prefer the past, or even want to relive the old days. However, have you ever thought that the image you have of the past is fictional?
Of course, this idea does not apply to everyone, there are people who struggle to make peace with their past or even neglect it. A typical example is people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A Columnist from The Guardian, described PTSD as “time travel” because “you are walking around, living your life in the present, but a part of you is back there in the traumatic event, reliving that night again and again, with your body responding accordingly.” These people, unlike the reminiscing ones, would have rather never have lived through their past. Yet, similarly, whether nostalgic or traumatic, both groups of people have become prisoners of the past.
There is a method called cognitive processing therapy which is used to help people differentiate the past from present. It is also shown in The Matrix: Resurrections, when the therapist asked Neo to “follow the voice” and “feel the tips of his fingers”. This practice is an attempt to lure patients’ wandering minds back to the current moment as the past should not have kept them captive but should have been an aid for their continuation in the present.
A famous quote by American cartoonist Bill Keane goes, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” People tend to let the past define them, or stop them from living at the moment. However, as I have said before, perception changes, so does the memory itself. Memories should be pieces of puzzles in your life that contain acute senses of emotions, building up to who you are today. We should always learn from the past but not dwell in it because, after all, isn’t “reality based on memory nothing but fiction?”
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