Forgetting Things Can Make Us Experience More in Life
We have all experienced a time when we’re trying to remember something and can’t recall the memory or specific details we’re looking for. Although these memory blocking moments may seem like a nuisance, memory actually works in favor of us for many reasons. If people were able to remember every painful detail and emotion associated with a traumatic event, we wouldn’t want to experience many things twice. However, we’re able to remember enough of an event to learn from the experience.
If you were to ask a woman what child birth felt like, she might describe the experience as the most painful experience of her life. The soreness after birth, may remind a woman of the pain she went through during her time in labor. However, as time goes by and soreness fades, the memories of a painful childbirth begin to be forgotten. Therefore, a woman may want more children afterwards. If a woman was able to remember every moment of childbirth and the intense pain associated with the process, she may not want to go through the experience of a tough labor again with another child. A year after giving birth, the woman may describe the experience as “not so bad,” where weeks after the birth, she described the experience as “the most painful experience of her life.” It’s important to not completely block out or forget painful memories though, because those memories shield us from making mistakes again.
An example could include a child accidentally touching a hot stove. The boy doesn’t feel a burning sensation or sharp pain when he thinks about the experience of touching the stove. He also doesn’t feel pain when he walks by the stove. However, he remembers the act of hurting himself and needing to put ice on his wound. Therefore, the child’s memory has taught him to keep his hands away from stoves without adult supervision and to be more careful next time. He remembers the pain and experience, but doesn’t endure physical pain when recalling the event.
Work Cited
Hammond, Claudia. “Why Painful Memories Linger with Us.” Future. BBC, 12 Mar. 2015. Web. 6 Apr. 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150311-can-we-edit-out-painful-memories>.
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Counterintuitive Spring 2024 
Hey, tagf.
It’s quite odd that your one source is titled “Why Painful Memories Linger,” when the thrust of your argument is that they don’t. It’s also odd that you don’t cite Hammond’s article at all, although its presence in the Works Cited indicates that you have cited it.
P1. Hmmm. Since you don’t name an example, tagf, we don’t know that the “something” we’re remembering is a negative or traumatic event. If it isn’t, then surely forgetting is a nuisance. All the way through, you fail to identify the event as overall positive or negative. Surely most events that occur to us are blends of both positive and negative consequences. Think back on any first date and you’ll agree. If what you’re saying is that we wouldn’t date again if we remembered the humiliation of our terrible immature awkwardness, you might persuade a few readers. On the other hand, isn’t it even more of a nuisance not to remember the positive aspects of our memories? We forget them too, and turn our complex memories into simple labels like: First Date from Hell. We don’t necessarily suffer from negative memories like these: they explain why we have always avoided jocks since, or sorority girls, or artists, or redheads, whatever.
P2. Childbirth is a good example because the species depends on it. So probably there’s a good evolutionary reason women forget how godawful it is. But can you extrapolate from that to say we always benefit from forgetting the bad stuff? Aren’t we more likely to throw ourselves repeatedly into dangerous situations if we forget our mistakes and their horrifying consequences? What’s the survival value of that?
P3. Really? What’s left after our memories block out the small intimate details that cause us pain? I don’t buy it. I think we’re just as likely to remember the intimacies and forget the humiliations, or our own catastrophic insensitivity, or our neediness, or whatever we need to suppress in order to blame fate or the loved one for the breakup and exonerate ourselves. A persuasive paragraph would take my objections into account and refute them before they harden into a rejection of your argument, tagf.
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Thanks for the advice. Although it’s always harsh.. it is useful and I’ll improve my writing.
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I really the idea you have here, yet I think you can have a stronger title and a first sentence to really get the readers attention. A possible title can be “Experiencing Past Experiences for the First Time Again” I really think the last sentence of your second paragraph is really great and maybe changing that to be the first sentence of your essay may help it become more interesting, “Our memory shields us from everlasting unpleasant feelings by fading away details of an event.”
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For exercise 1, I’d rename my post “How Our Memories Haunt and Help us”
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