memento

memento

at first, it seemed like an almost pointless detective psychotic thriller
about a man who can’t form new memories and is trying to find his wife’s murderer by leaving clues to himself.

when i was later twisting and turning in bed after the movie,
i realized it wasn’t a pointless detective psychotic thriller.
(although Christopher Nolan did come up with the other very ludicrous movie, inception.)

what if the movie suggests a premise that human memory is unable to form new ones, like the character.
in the movie, everytime the character’s memory would lapse and he finds himself in a unfamiliar situation with someone he doesn’t recognize, he would try to bluff his way through and make people think he remembers them.
he scribbles notes on the back of a polaroid and all his subsequent actions stem from his conclusions from the polaroids and his analysis of the immediate situation

what if our memory is like that?
he ends up doing the wrong thing because he wrote something incorrectly at the spur of the moment.

what if our’s is like that?
we all live to an extent based on a set of long term memories. all our subsequent actions derive from this set of long term memories when we don’t change and stay static as a person
no newfound relevations about life, about our actions, about our aspiration. we just move forward in life each day, to some extents, as robots.

and last night i realized that, that for any reason, i could be doing the way i’m doing things now because of a decision i made a long time ago about what i would do.
but the reason of that decision did not stay with me, but only that resolution. which comes to a point where i may even be doing wrong things, like that man in the movie.

that’s my realization and the question i was talking about is my college life.
this debate has been going on in my head for a really long time. it started when i arrived, i temporarily was relieved of it because i felt i solved it.
but in some ways, i feel like i’ve eluded it instead.

the question about these random hookups in university.
what prompts me to do them and what doesn’t. what is the long term resolution memory i started with but i forgot the reason and motivation for.

the reason for not doing it is i don’t want to be so casual with everyone.

my motto is 问心无愧
but i also realize that some things that i did in the past i was sure of, now i regret them.
i also realize that somehow people manage to later justify their actions.

i’ve made a decision, not necessarily to party more, but to be more free.