Forgetting: killing, dying

I read once that life is about learning to forget. There must be a great deal of wisdom hidden in that learning process. After all, we need to move towards loosening one’s grip on whatever we claim to possess. We don’t own our possessions. They get hold of us. Thus, forgetting is letting memories run their courses; forgetting means being at peace with those treasures that inexoraby move to a vortex, one that would swallow them into that bottomless pit we call the past.

And yet.

Isn’t being forgotten akin to death? Don’t we die once we are thrown into oblivion? We cease to exist in somebody’s world whenever we’re wrapped in the cloak of forgetfulness that renders us invisible. We become non-existent. No tombstone is left to mark our sojourn in that world that thus erases any memory of us.

Do we want to die? Doesn’t the fellow about to commit suicide up on the windowsill of his 40th floor apartment cross his heart before his deadly jump? Luis Eduardo Aute says so in one of his songs. We don’t mean to die. We’d rather do the killing. We’d rather become murderers than being forgotten. We’d rather be the ones who forget.

But...

What happens when I kill? It happens that I die. “Every murder is a suicidal act.” Hinkelammert is fond of repeating that medieval statement. It holds so much truth! If I forget it’ll be me the one being killed.