In "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," Jim Carrey's character has his ex-girlfriend, played by Kate Winslet, expunged from his memory through a procedure on his brain.
First to go are his most recent memories — a bitter breakup, a painfully dull dinner — with which he readily parts, followed by others — an amorous tryst, running along the beach — which he realizes, too late, he wants to keep. Most of the film is a backwards journey through his memories of her while he tries frantically to salvage them from systematic deletion.
What is striking about the film, a spectacular cast and innovative script notwithstanding, is its view on memory and memory's role in the human experience. When flashing back, the film — unlike most films and people — makes no claims on objectivity or accuracy. The memories are clearly altered by his returning to them: snippets of the present intrude on the scenes, and what he hears doesn't always match what he sees. According to the film, the human mind is unreliable and the past, consequently, easily distorted.
An apt response to this idea could be suspicion (reading memoirs with raised eyebrows) or scorn (tossing Hamlet's idea of man as "infinite in faculties").
But what if memory's constantly changing form, rather than reflecting our gross limitations, in fact gives cause for celebration?
Perhaps life is like a good novel which, with each read, becomes a different story: Your sympathies shift among the characters, you're struck by varying aspects, and your knowledge of later chapters colors your reading of earlier ones. What you saw at age 15 to be a tyrannical move by the parents, you read at 25 to be an act of tough love. Knowing the mother will die in chapter 13, you view her with new eyes in chapter 10.
Isn't that the beauty of the novel, how it chronicles and exalts and immortalizes the lives of ordinary people? Don't our own lives deserve the reflective attention we give to mere fiction?
Perhaps, then, the fragility of memory is a testament to our maturity. An unchanging view of who we were and what once was, while comfortingly stable, indicates a lack of growth.
As college students at a turning point in our lives, many of our perceptions and beliefs are crumbling or transforming. We look into our pasts and realize all our memories have changed. But would we want it any other way?
Unsurprisingly, in chasing his vanishing memories, the film's protagonist comes to a realization that all adults — I hope — come to: Pain, as much as joy, is an integral part of the human experience. It's worth remembering, because it makes us who we are. If we could, would we expunge ex-girlfriends, enemies, and all the disappointments and struggles from our past, which have given us character and perspective? Would we grant ourselves a future with no risks, only rewards; no tears, only laughter; no journeys, only destinations?
Many of us view graduation, heading off at last into the "real world," with some trepidation. We look into our futures and realize they'll be uncertain and difficult. But would we want it any other way?
A life of eternal sunshine sounds appealing, but what would we be if we all had spotless minds?
Julie Park is an English major from Wayne, N.J. You can reach her at jypark@princeton.edu. Her column appears on alternate Tuesdays.
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