Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

The common myth of a man losing his memory of the past so lives a life of innocence & contentment into the future is an appealing one, but it does reveal an unpleasant truth: memories are what make people unhappy. It’s the opposite of how memories are presented in tradition & cultural, where old people die comforted by the families they’ve raised and the lives they’ve lived. Instead, many people dwell on the negative things that they’ve done or have happened in their lives. Certainly, there must have been good things too, but the human psyche seems to fixate on gloom. Maybe it’s because regret seems perpetual while satisfaction is fleeting; good feelings expire while bad ones get endlessly regurgitated. Back to the myth: would you really be happy if you woke up not remembering anything? Would it make you naive & sincere? If they could, might some people choose to lose all their past memories? There are plenty of examples: Alzheimer’s & dementia are cases of people forgetting the past, and it doesn’t seem like a life worth living There’s also alcoholics & drug addicts who drown themselves in forgetfulness. What did they do in their past that they can’t live with the memory? Was it something heinous, or simply irreconcilable regret? There is also the ironic issue of, if a man doesn’t remember a crime he committed; should he be punished? Do memories make the man or break him?