Memento: The Burden Of Memory

Memory may be the most essential element of the human mind.  It serves as our connection to the past, all that we have known, learned, and experienced.  It also serves as the expansive reservoir of our personality, which we draw from moment by moment in all of our responses, our actions and reactions to everything in our lives.  It is the weathered and worn seat of our souls and the cornerstone of our emotional existence.   A song or faded photograph or even a faint scent in the air can tap into this deep well of stored feelings.  All of our triumphs and regrets, our shame as well as our fond recollections, reside in out memories.  But even aside from all of these lofty characteristics, memory also serves a simple, utilitarian purpose.  It facilitates our practical ability to function in life.  It grants us the ability to retain the knowledge of who, what, and where we are, and most importantly, what we need to do.  It is primarily with the nature of memory in this last capacity that the movie Memento is concerned.

To start with I want to share three examples of things I do to help me remember things that I need to remember.  They're certainly not unusual examples, but they'll serve as useful illustrations that I'll be able to refer back to.  Anyway: 

1. When there's one important thing that I absolutely need to remember I usually write myself a note with a pen on the back of my left hand between my thumb and my forefinger.  Being left-handed, it would probably be easier to write the note on the back of my right hand, but being left handed also means I use my left hand more, so I definitely see more of the back of that hand.  So the gain in visibility is well worth the awkward effort of trying to write with my right hand.
2. I don't make a routine practice of making "to-do" lists; it's definitely not something I do every day.  But when I feel like I have an overwhelming pile of stuff to do, and especially when I feel like I'm having a hard time jumping in and getting started, sitting down and making a "to-do" list can be very helpful means of breaking it all down and making it all seem just a little more manageable. 
3. Like most people I keep a list of contacts in my cell phone.  I have it all organized by people's home, cell, office, email, etc.  One of the first things I do when I get a new phone is sit down and copy all the contact information from my old phone.  I refer to this list regularly.  If I'm talking on my home phone, I look up the number on my cell phone before dialing.  If I'm using the cell phone itself, I don't dial; I just hit a button.  If I'm filling out a job application, I have the numbers of many of my previous employers saved on the phone, so that I can refer to them.   

 Now, I noticed something about the first two things.  Although their primary purpose is a means to remembering things, I find that they also bring a certain sense of relief.  Once I write the note on the back of my hand, I'm pretty much free to forget about it.  I can release the tight grip my concentration has on this little piece of information.  I no longer have to worry about forgetting it.  The information is right there on the back of my hand.  In fact, I find that nearly 80% of the stress in my life comes from this endless responsibility to remember things.  That's why the "to-do" list comes in so handy.  More than half the aggravation of having a pile of errands to attend to is the necessity of having to remember it all and keep it straight in my head.  The "to-do" list removes that problem, and reduces it to the simple task of checking things off one by one.  So while these techniques help me remember, they also help me manage stress.  They take the edge off the burden of my responsibilities.

However, like most things in life, there's a trade-off, which brings us to the third item on the list.  Since putting these numbers on my cell phone, I've noticed a definite drop-off in my ability to remember phone numbers.  In the old days, I used to have dozens of phone numbers floating around in my head that I could recall effortlessly at a moment's notice.  Now that I've started putting them on my phone, I have trouble even remembering my own mother's number.  I don't even remember the number to the cell phone itself.  It's on the the phone itself under "phone information", so why bother?  So it seems the phone has taken the place of my memory.  While this relieves the stressful burden of remembering the numbers, I'm in serious trouble if I lose or break the phone.  

Although this may all sound like a dry and difficult subject to present dramatically,  Memento manages to pull it off.  It does so by presenting an extreme case, a man who has no short term memory whatsoever, a man who relies completely on the kind of reminders described above.  Rather than writing notes on his hand, he covers his body in tattoos that remind him of who he is, where he is, and what he has to do.  The task of which needs to be reminded is more that simply buying groceries and paying the water bill.  He's trying to to find the man who murdered his wife and robbed him of his ability to form new memories.  Yet, despite these exaggerations, the essential principles remains the same.  

For Lenny, the protagonist of the film, these "mementos" take on a life of their own.  Others take advantage of his condition and use this system of his to confuse and manipulate him.  In  fact we eventually learn that Lenny has even used the system to trick himself.  He is at the mercy of these mementos.  If he writes a note on a Polaroid telling him to trust someone, the note itself achieves the status of an unquestionable judgment, even if it turns out that he made a huge mistake when he wrote the note.  The mistake is long forgotten, and only the note remains as his sole guide.  Even his own drive and purpose fade way, replaced completely by task set down for him in this accumulated pile of notes and information.   In the end it seems that the task may have even been completed long ago, or might not even have been real to begin with, but Lenny deliberately perpetuates it because these notes and what they tell him to do are the only sense of direction and purpose he has left.

By showing us a man robbed of his memory, Memento demonstrates the importance and function of memory through its absence.  Lenny is a man adrift in life.  He lives in motel room, and the only reason he knows he lives there is because he has a picture of it in his coat pocket.  His entire world revolves around the leads that he believes will help him find his wife's killer.  He thinks of nothing else.  He has surrendered completely to his mementos.  He has been freed from the stressful burden of memory, and he has lost all control of his life in the process.  So the next time you write a note reminding yourself to "buy milk" or you jot down a phone number, and you breathe a sigh a relief that now you don't have to worry about the information slipping your mind...just remember that relying on your own mind might not always be a bad thing.