How do you feel about memory? Is it a blessing or a curse to you? Something else entirely?

I use my past to make art. Draw upon it for lessons of wisdom. Some of what I experienced, however, I have allowed to be a hindrance to my present.

I like what F. Scott Fitzgerald says at the end of The Great Gatsby.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

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BlueMetalChick · 26-30, F

My memory makes up a huge part of my personality. Without the memory I have, I wouldn't be me. I have a memory that almost too good for my own good. Whenever I'm not actively focused on doing something, my brain is like the random access function on a computer hard drive. I just start calling up memories of things in no particular order, and much of the time it's not even important or noteworthy or meaningful stuff. It can be as mundane as having seen someone with a cool pair of shoes at the hot dog stand two weeks ago, or a conversation about sushi that I had in a parked car at 1:00 a.m. with my best friend's father when he gave me a ride home three years ago. It's scary how well I remember things.

DanielChristensen · 46-50, M

I would have guessed that about you, to be perfectly honest. I have memories that near to birth, but only a very sharp memory for some things. I forget people's names, but I remember the impressions they leave upon me much more potently.

BlueMetalChick · 26-30, F

@DanielChristensen: I one time scared my friend's dad by remembering the names of two friends of his who I met almost 12 years ago. I met them one time and then never saw them again, and he never even talked about them after that, but I perfectly remembered their names were Heather and Arlo. He got spooked by that.

DanielChristensen · 46-50, M

I've known since EP that you were very intelligent, but I also suspected since that time that the memory of hard experiences had left you with an inner rage and bitterness. It is good to be filled with fire. Though passive and gentile on the surface, I have a very passionate heart.

There are many hard times I would like to forget, but I do not know that would be doing myself a service. We need the wisdom of these experiences to survive in a cruel world. You know the old adage about what we forget, we are doomed to repeat.

BlueMetalChick · 26-30, F

@DanielChristensen: I would never remove my experiences of suffering. They've made me tough and given me a reason to fight everything I dislike.