I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering, which is not the opposite of forgetting, but rather its lining. We do not remember. We rewrite memory much as history is rewritten. How can one remember thirst?
Interpretation
Memory is not simply a recollection of facts but a reconstruction shaped by our experiences and perceptions.
Chris Marker's quote explores the complex nature of memory and forgetting. It suggests that our memories are not static recordings, but rather fluid narratives that we reconstruct based on our current understanding and emotions. This idea emphasizes that remembering is intertwined with forgetting, as they both play a vital role in shaping our perception of the past. In essence, our memories are more like a rewritten history than a direct reflection of what has occurred.
In practice
In a discussion about how people's perceptions of the same event can differ, this quote highlights the subjective nature of memory.
Who said that time heals all wounds? It would be better to say that time heals everything - except wounds. With time, the hurt of separation loses its real limits. With time, the desired body will soon disappear, and if the desiring body has already ceased to exist for the other, then what remains is a wound, disembodied.
Nothing sorts out memories from ordinary moments. It is only later that they claim remembrance, when they show their scars.
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow: In Flanders fields.
What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call 'thought'.
Strange how blind people are! They are horrified by the torture chambers of the Middle Ages, but their arsenals fill them with pride!
Our instinct may be to see the impossibility of tracking everything down as frustrating, dispiriting, perhaps even appalling, but it can just as well be viewed as almost unbearably exciting. We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capacity to surprise. What reasoning person could possibly want it any other way?
O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
There are no greater adversaries than yin and yang, because nothing in Heaven or on Earth escapes them. But it is not yin and yang that do this, it is your heart that makes it so.
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