I miss not having a blank slate, being a kid. If I could wake up every day
with amnesia... I dunno that I'd wish it on myself every day, but just
once I'd like to experience amnesia. Don't ask me why- it would just be something
pretty interesting to experience- provided I could get my memory back.
In an effort to prevent a total loss of memory, I have a lot
of my life archived in journal entries, an autobiography-in-progress, millions
of words in stories, thousands of emails... I'm a literary pack-rat. The stuff
I'd be greeted with, if I ever made it home after being stricken with amnesia,
would give me a pretty good sense of who I am, from my own perspective, I think.
I hope.
But I wonder what others would tell me about myself, under the assumption that
I forgot who I was and they knew. Good things? Bad things? Would I then
be able to discern who my real friends were and who they weren't? Would
I care? All kinds of questions crop up when I think about the possibility of losing
my memory, not to know who I am.
If I ever got my memory back, would I be a changed man? Is amnesia a sort of
waking return from death without actually dying? How does one's self-image change,
if at all, when they try to overcome amnesia? I dunno, but I'd like to find out.
I've never met an amnesiac... maybe that'd be a safer way to answer my questions
about it... but it's something to dwell upon, I guess. I won't actively go out
and bonk myself on the head in the hopes of losing my memory, but if it happens
I wonder what it'd be like?