So I was talking to another writer I know and we were kicking around a great idea for another novel. It was through text message so it was choppy but I was hooked right away. He created a world where memories could be down loaded and played back. The original intent for this was to help Alzheimer patients keep more of who they are. As the story progresses we find the main character with a false memory. He knows it is false but the government agents chasing him believe it to be true.
As I lay awake in bed contemplating this world with out lawyers and conviction by downloaded memory, I wonder if memories are downloaded and played back, can we then erase them. Could we remove chunks of conscious or subconscious memory that we deem useless just as our bodies shed dead cells? The human body regenerates at a rapid pace. Allergies change every seven years because we have a new physical body every seven years. The cells we had seven years ago have been replaced. It is only our memories that tie us to the old dead cells absorbed or otherwise forgotten.
I sit in a chair and examine my memories (the make up of my current condition) with a doctor, cherry picking the good from the bad. I choose to eliminate the ones that make me feel incompetent or ashamed, I only remember accomplishments so when I wake up I feel as I did at nineteen with out mistakes. What have I lost?
I gained confidence in who I am, or did I just cut out growth that has lead me to write this very blog?
Maybe if we can stop time at 19 or 25 or 39 and get to choose our own adventure and don’t like where it leads we go back to that decision and choose another adventure, erasing what we went through. By age 20, 36 or 40 we would be the person we set out to become.
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