456. To Forgive And Forget

Tools to record and document our experiences are more accessible than ever before. It is no longer mere fantasy to consider recording every second of the life of a human being from birth to death. Already we record countless events through journals, messages, photos, videos, and other media technologies.

We continue to augment our internal memory with records stored outside of our bodies. The body is, of course, capable of forgetting what is no longer needed, and when our lives come to an end, its memories stop existing entirely. But the part of our memory that is held in external media will not disappear like this. It will remain until it is erased or perhaps until it is physically destroyed. Forgetting now seems to require that we actively take measures to delete what is no longer needed.

But what if our ability to erase was lost? What if everything that happened was recorded and accessible forever? Then forgetting would be almost impossible. We would be haunted by the past and regularly dragged back to those moments that were most embarrassing, that we profoundly regret, or that we would like to live once again.

We would form new intentions about our past — desires for the good parts, aversions to the bad parts, and beliefs separating the good from the bad. With new intentions comes the possibility of new suffering. By enhancing our ability to remember, we also enhance our ability to suffer. But suffering only arises when we are attached to our intentions. The other side of forgetting is forgiveness, and it is to forgiveness that we must turn in a world that does not allow us to forget.

To forgive is to release ourselves from the past, from the person we once were and the events we once lived. It is to let go not just of our regrets and our judgments about the past, but also our nostalgic desires. By forgiving ourselves for everything we have done, we enable the freedom from the past that is needed to create more joyful experiences in the present.