Thursday, May 7, 2009

I just got lost.


(Disclaimer: this post is relevant (well, that's my hope, anyway) even if you don't watch Lost, and isn't specific enough to ruin anything if you are relatively up to date this season. )

The latest Lost quandry that has been running through my thoughts is the following:

If you had the ability to change the past so that events in the future would be prevented, would you do it? Or, do you feel like however painful or traumatizing those events might be, they have shaped your selfhood and understanding of life and the world in such a way that you wouldn't want to un-do them?

Is it ethical to try to change an event in your memory? The New York Times discussed this a few weeks ago (not so much in the time travel, science fiction sense, though...it does feel a little like that). Nicole Krauss poses this question in Man Walks into a Room.

Memory is a repeating theme for me in my reading and writing.

What would the consequences be of deleting a scene from your life?
Even now I'm trying to think of potential scenarios that people may want to remove, but it gets so complicated and messy in about 5 seconds of thought.

Today I'm apparently just posing questions.

1 comment:

Buddha said...

this american life did a piece on this last week. very average, but something else none the less