Memory - A boon or a burden ~ A perspective of life
Dated : 22-03-08
Memory –Is it a boon or burden????? A question to ponder! Why is it that we are quick in remembering unsavory or unhappy incidents that have occurred in the past and have to rake our cerebral matter in search of pleasant events, despite the fact that our life is filled with equal share of both pleasant events and unpleasant ones????? When I posed the question to my father, he replied in his characteristic humor "Rare things are perceived precious and naturally the precious things are guarded covetously in our memory. For a beggar, happier moments are rare and see how happy he appears when compared to us."
The irritated look on my face got a deeper answer out of him. And then he gave the wisely words of his Guru.....
"Every incident that happens has got two aspects. One it is an experience associated with an emotion good, bad, positive, negative, pleasant, unpleasant etc. Second it teaches a lesson however trivial it may be. If you tend to throw away the juice (the lesson) out and retain the waste (the incident with the negative feelings) no wonder, the insalubrious and unpleasant memories becomes more of a burden. It is like the food we take that contains both nutritious part and the waste. A living body has been designed to retain the nutritious part to add value to organs, and to expel the waste periodically. A human being has a value addition to it with a mind, to acquire the wisdom, to design a similar mechanism to take the due lesson from the incident and forget the incident but not the lesson. He has the capacity to scrutinize the events in his life and conclude on what is right and wrong as per the situation."
And then he gave an example - "The best thing about a child is, it actually learns the lesson and takes the quintessence unlike elders"
So true.....As we all grow up, some of us tend to adorn only the child-ish image and some of us retain the child-like quality. And so one is to be periodically reminded to practice the child like quality of "learn the lesson and forget the incident". That’s when memory becomes a boon. Otherwise memory is a burden that paves path towards a miserable life.
Well the choice is left to an individual: A boon or a burden?
Memory –Is it a boon or burden????? A question to ponder! Why is it that we are quick in remembering unsavory or unhappy incidents that have occurred in the past and have to rake our cerebral matter in search of pleasant events, despite the fact that our life is filled with equal share of both pleasant events and unpleasant ones????? When I posed the question to my father, he replied in his characteristic humor "Rare things are perceived precious and naturally the precious things are guarded covetously in our memory. For a beggar, happier moments are rare and see how happy he appears when compared to us."
The irritated look on my face got a deeper answer out of him. And then he gave the wisely words of his Guru.....
"Every incident that happens has got two aspects. One it is an experience associated with an emotion good, bad, positive, negative, pleasant, unpleasant etc. Second it teaches a lesson however trivial it may be. If you tend to throw away the juice (the lesson) out and retain the waste (the incident with the negative feelings) no wonder, the insalubrious and unpleasant memories becomes more of a burden. It is like the food we take that contains both nutritious part and the waste. A living body has been designed to retain the nutritious part to add value to organs, and to expel the waste periodically. A human being has a value addition to it with a mind, to acquire the wisdom, to design a similar mechanism to take the due lesson from the incident and forget the incident but not the lesson. He has the capacity to scrutinize the events in his life and conclude on what is right and wrong as per the situation."
And then he gave an example - "The best thing about a child is, it actually learns the lesson and takes the quintessence unlike elders"
So true.....As we all grow up, some of us tend to adorn only the child-ish image and some of us retain the child-like quality. And so one is to be periodically reminded to practice the child like quality of "learn the lesson and forget the incident". That’s when memory becomes a boon. Otherwise memory is a burden that paves path towards a miserable life.
Well the choice is left to an individual: A boon or a burden?
Labels: Diplomatically (in)correct
posted by Narayani Karthik | 5:47 AM
1 Comments:
wow, another nice article. Very well written and articulated esp the one about remembering the lesson and forgetting the incident. Though I have always tried to live by this, I have never been able to articulate it so well in my mind.
Its definitely going in my collection of quotes - the ones that I really relate to.
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