Although I had to miss class on Tuesday my friend told me that what we did in class was watch an episode of Black Mirror. I decided to watch it in order to be prepare for class on Thursday and also because it sounded really interesting. The episode “the entire history of you” shocked me. While watching it I couldn’t help but think that in some way, that is our society today—relying in pictures and videos in order to remember moments with family and friends. The episode itself shows the value that memory plays in the built of trust and relationships. It was so sad to see how their family was destroyed just because he could prove through the wife’s recorded moments that she cheated on him. I can help but wonder how that nowadays would affect so many friendships and relationships, because although I don’t condone lying and cheating, this would not only affect gf/bf relationships but people would never be able to forgive and forget, rebuilt trust if it was broken before, or even invest in a friendship or relationship that fell apart if they had records of why it didn’t work out in the first place. It would be strange to have a system like that implemented in our society because I feel like having the ability to never forget and always have access to every moment in your life and every encounter with people would just fuel the fire and cause more problems than solutions to the situations we face nowadays.
Likewise, while reading The Buried Giant it is interesting how the story is based on a population completely forgetting its past and relying on kind of this “short-memory” system that allows them to get by through the day. People remember they have to wake up in the morning and do their daily shores, yet somehow no one can figure out the past—Axl and Beatrice cannot remember their child or why he is not with them anymore. It is devastating to read how Beatrice can’t remember how he looks like, what is he like personality wise, where is he situated yet can feel it and calls it a “motherly feature” that reassures her that although she can’t remember him, she has a son, that he exists. I am very interested in what will happen in the next few chapters of the book and figure out what happened to the society that essentially erased their “hard drive” making them forget everything from their past. I think this book instills in readers the importance memory plays in our daily lives and how it affects who we are.