Que horror. Mejor no vivir que vivir sin poder olvidar nada nunca. Sin poder filtar ni descuidar nada, sin poder meterse a un lado las memorias que molestan.
ShiraDest
1 noviembre 12015 EH
(Era Holocena/Humana) ( )

Que horror. Mejor no vivir que vivir sin poder olvidar nada nunca. Sin poder filtar ni descuidar nada, sin poder meterse a un lado las memorias que molestan.
ShiraDest
1 noviembre 12015 EH
(Era Holocena/Humana) ( )

This Jorge Luis Borges tale is about Ireneo Funes who, as the result of an accident involving an injury to his head, gains the astonishing ability to remember everything - Funes can remember every past experience, every past event as well as all the sense impressions he has ever had in excruciatingly minuscule detail. Likewise with the books he reads – Funes can recall sharply and completely every letter, every word, every sentence contained on every page.

Sound like fun? Perhaps this would be more a curse than a gift. I wonder how my own life would change if I were to wake up on day with this extraordinary ability. I suspect the odds of such an occurrence are rather slim, but still I ask myself the following question:

1. If I could remember one year of my life with complete clarity, what year would that be? Age two or three where I currently have virtually no memory? Or, a year when I absorbed large quantities of information? Or, a year when I had the most powerfully pleasurable experiences? What does my choice say about the priorities of my values?

2. Focusing on just a day, what day of my life would I like to remember in vivid detail, in such vivid detail that my memory of the day would share the exact same intensity as the actual day itself?

3. The corollary to the above two question: What year of my life would I wish I could completely lose from my memory? What day of my life would I wish I could completely forget?

4. If I could have an astonishing keenness of one of my senses, what would that sense be? Hearing? Sight? Touch?

5. If there was one book I could have in my long term memory to the point where I could instantly recite any of its lines, what would be that book?

6. If I could have mastery of the subject matter contained in one book, what would be that book?

How would you answer these questions? Are there other questions about memory you would ask yourself?

You can read the actual Borges tale by clicking on this link and downloading one of the PDFs: https://www.google.com/#q=funes, his memory
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