Remember me, don't let it make you cry

In one of our undergraduate classes, we were having a discussion about the biggest fears that we have. As we all shared ours, my teacher (one of the people who inspires me the most) spoke about his fear of being forgotten. It is almost as if the last piece of the puzzle fit, or as Aristotle would call it, anagnorisis (if this was a play or a novel). I realized how much one’s fear shapes the person they are to be. I also learned how many people share this fear of being forgotten and never seem to come to terms with the mortality of memory. It is this recurrent phenomenon that Forget Me Not: Making peace with the fear of being forgotten talks about. 

Athazagoraphobia is the fear of being forgotten. The writing talks about the Egyptian belief in the ‘second death,’ which occurs when the memory of somebody completely fades away. Memory is, in so many ways, crucial to all of us. It is more about the fear of not being remembered than the fear of being forgotten. The question of legacy, or what one leaves behind in this world, comes into the picture. 

It is the futility of life that makes people quickly forget the dead. This piece heavily reminded me of the Disney film Coco. The death of the great-grandfather of the protagonist was two-fold. On the one hand, the death and decay of his physical self sent him to the afterlife. But, on the other hand, the metaphorical death of his memory came with the forgetting. It was his lack of having the ability or agency to pass on a legacy that was the cause of him being forgotten. 

It is this same phenomenon that the piece looks into. As the author seems more into her past and her ancestry, she finds out more about the people that have been forgotten. The lack of remembering everyone and the evidence of the futility of their life often brings back the fear of being forgotten. 

This brings us to a very dark and cynical thought of impermanence. Everything in this world is impermanent. As the piece suggests, “Here today, gone tomorrow.” The writing shows that it is not just us and our existence that is temporary but even the most minor things, like one breath replacing another, and time that is once gone can never come back. 

It is this Buddhist thought of anicca or instability. Any thing “simply won’t stay the same.” Isn’t this true with not just people but memories associated with them as well? As time passes, our perception of events, incidents, and people changes too. Then why do we hold on so dearly to people and things if we must all once be forgotten? 

The text takes a positive turn from this cynical thought. “By accepting that change is a part of life, we can save ourselves from the grief we feel when something is lost or broken.” “What’s more, it helps us to appreciate the value of what we have in this moment, knowing that there is no guarantee it will be here tomorrow.”  

The impermanence of things and people enables us to appreciate them. But, conversely, an eternity of anything fundamentally ‘good’ or ‘bad’ dwindles its meaning. A concept beautifully portrayed in the show The Good Place, directed by Michael Schur. 

(spoiler alert)

In the final season, when all the main protagonists finally enter The Good Place, they are appalled by the unliveliness of the place. This place they struggled so much to enter was Heaven for eternity. It was a life of eternity filled with the joy of all goodness. In contrast to the happy image of The Good Place that one imagines, the people are dreary and dull. 

It was the permanence of goodness that made even Heaven unexciting and repetitive. Therefore, one can say that it is in the impermanence of things that we find joy and appreciation. Maybe, being forgotten gives us more reason to ‘live a life you will remember’ (Avicii, The Nights). 

But this brings us to the following problem: the need to be extraordinary to be remembered. “As psychologist Ronald Siegel writes in his book The Extraordinary Gift of Being Ordinary, “Who aspires to be ‘plain,’ ‘average,’ or ‘normal’?” This need to be above the ordinary, although impossible to achieve, leads us into “Dr. Siegel explains that we often get caught in a “self-evaluation trap,” where our self-worth is dependent on achievement or the positive regard of others, so we constantly seek the next affirmation or accolade.”

After all, isn’t it the ability to be invisible that makes us one among the many? Thus, the validation we get from people boosts our self-esteem. The desire to be accepted and recognized drives away the fear of being forgotten. But it is imprudent to constantly allow people to have power over our self-esteem. If it is only through the validation of the public that one finds solitude, then this peace that one gets is so fragile and arbitrary. 

Thus, “By embracing our ordinariness, we can develop a positive self-regard that is not dependent on external praise or achievement.” 

The piece then brings us to the next question, “So that’s it then? We are all destined for oblivion, with no choice but to accept the fear of being forgotten?” Well, the answer to this is quite simple. People might forget names, experiences, and even memories, but the impacts remain. It is not the need to do something extraordinary to be remembered. We need to focus on being human because we are forever passed on in terms of how we love, our wisdom, and our impact on other people. Like the butterfly effect or the chain reaction, our lives never truly vanquish; they just pass on from one person to another. 

I am no science student, but if I remember correctly, “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be transferred from one form to another.” If we, as 8 billion people, live such futile lives are just ‘matter’ in the larger sphere of life, then can we ever truly be forgotten?