The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

Once while being interviewed an ebullient Salman Rushdie, my last post’s buddy, said that during his Oxford days he learned more from the Friday night shows than course books. It may sound unfounded to many but not me. I too can claim with conviction that in this case I have reciprocated him, infact I have even gone few steps further in embracing the first one and almost ditching the later. Once while taking one such learning filmy-session through a 2004 neosurrealistic classic ‘Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind’ directed by Michel Gondry, a brilliant exploration of human memory and relationship, I came across the above mentioned lines. During the movie when Mary Svevo, played by Kirsten Dunst, recited these lines of Alexander pope to Dr. Howard, though totally involved watching, a fascinated I paused to take out my diary and pen it down. Later, as habitually, while surfing through the wiki pages of the movie I came to know that these arresting 4 lines are a part of a 366 lines long poetic epistle ‘Eloisa to Abelard’, a terrible tale of a rebellious love (though the word terrible was unnecessary, love as always is, in any form terrible).

To fathom out the entire poem is a colossal task and will require an understanding far above my meager intellectual capacity. For the time being the uninitiated reader needs to know only this much that Eloisa while suffering from separation and realizing that now a helpless Abelard can never reciprocate her love prays not for forgiveness but forgetfulness.

As now there is no Mrs. Lizzy around to explicate me such enigmatic verses, a seeking me tried googling it out, and not to my surprise there were plentiful explanation by many generous souls. What I found is this that the above lines are in a sardonic tone. Vestals were the virgin maids of ancient times who were devoted to the services of temples soon after birth. They were held as symbol of purity and peace. Ordinary people tangled up in the blues, as man is inherently sadistic, envied them for their so perceived peace of mind. But here Pope doubts there happiness. He argues that what other saw in them as happiness was actually there ignorance. Since they were ignorant of the world around they knew of nothing, neither true happiness nor real sadness. There life was nothing but a hollow and futile existence, as to be blameless is also to be empty, meaningless and blank, without the weight of choice and consequence. If we want only what we're given -is that happiness? No. Sometimes change can be costly, and not always rewarding, but standing costs dreams and desires.

At the any stage in our life we are nothing but the sum total of our memories. We are happy when the memory we cherish dominates our psyche. Similarly unpleasant memories make us downhearted. In a way life is all about collecting good experiences, because we will all relive them umpteen times through our reflections. But the problem with human mind is this that it is more a RAM based device, where the secondary storage is lost in the piles of recent data’s. Sometime a small bitter moment takes over the years of togetherness, as all the sweet memories are buried in the sand of time. It is only in the afterthoughts that we realize the true worth of a relationship gone bad by a small clash, but then mostly it is too hard to make corrections as there always is the ego factor. When Friedrich Nietzsche quoted “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders” he too displayed similar attitude as a poignant Eloisa. He considered the forgetful lucky as they forgot even there bitter memories but then at same time they were also reduced as creature of the moment, with no treasure of past to live upon. At times when some recent experience troubles us we too urge for forgetfulness to get over the painful part but a mere reflection will suggest that how hollow life will be without memories.

The above mentioned movie approaches the same human dilemma in a splendid manner. It is the story of Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), a couple as distinct as two extremes, while Joel is reclusive Clementine is vivacious, but both of them find happiness together. However once a small misunderstanding blows out of proportion and an impulsive Clementine had all the memories of Joel erased from her mind by a surgical process ( a liberty which artistic independence allows the storyteller). An angry Joel reciprocates her by opting to obliterate her memories. As if “Look at it out here, it's all falling apart. I'm erasing you and I'm happy! By morning, you'll be gone”.

But in order to wipe out the memories the operating machine first needed to map those particular memory cells thereby enabling the holder to view them one last time while in an unconscious dream like state. It is only when Joel revisits his memories with Clementine, he has afterthoughts; and he recognize that though few moments between them were bitter but majority of them were happy and he understand that it was Clementine who brought meaning and magic to his mundane life through her vivacity. The rest of the movie take place in Joel’s mind, and from here the neo-surreal part begins. Now onward it is shown how in his mind Joel with Clementine struggles to rescue few of their memories from being completely washed, and while leaving them again he realize that these memories are all that are left behind as their life together, and once they are gone a life once lived is gone as well.

The one message that the movie pass is that if only one can stand apart and watch his whole life from a distance than one can realize that how wonderful a life it was, inspite of all the so thought mistakes committed. A second inferential message could be about accepting people as they are because they are still the same wonderful person inspite of their imperfection and if you have found happiness with a person once you will find it with them once again. All you need is to wipe the dirty spots which come in a relationship and this wiping doesn’t needs a spotless mind but a pure heart. Because in real life there is no surgical process to clean dirty spots of memory it could be done only by defocusing from those spots and viewing the larger picture which requires an open heart. And hence it is more important to have a pure heart than a spotless mind.