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Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Human Psyche

In the past 3 days, I saw 2 movies that had something (or a lot) to do with the human mind, its power and its unbelievably dangerous side.

They were – Secret Window, based on the book ‘Secret Window, Secret Garden’ by Stephen King. Johnny Depp played the central character, Morton Rainey.

The other movie was, Psycho II. Here the main character’s name is Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins.

Both these movies revealed to me that the human mind is too complex to be understood and sometimes a person’s behaviour is just beyond human comprehension.

In most of such horror movies, the person doesn’t know that he is the one killing people mercilessly and the revelation at the end comes as a shock not only to him but also to the audience.

Well, at one point of time in the recent times, I felt that blocks of my memories went missing in a flash. That was really scary because I never knew what I saw, did or said in that episode and I would go blank when I think about it. Obviously, whatever I did was never as serious a crime as the ones they show in the horror movies. Nevertheless, that was something I had to be aware of about myself so that things don't go out of my control.

To cite some examples… before that I must tell you that most of the examples have to do with the names of people and places that, much to my relief this is a very common crime and something that would make people believe that I am normal.

Example 1: I am introducing my college senior to my colleague. “Senior, he is my colleague… His name is… Blink! Blink! Blink!” What could be more embarrassing than this?

Example 2: I had to ask my colleague if I could take the chair in her cubicle. She is in the cubicle next to mine and I have known her for several months now. But at that moment, I forgot her name. And to save my face, I had to pat on her shoulder to catch her attention.

Example 3: My friends were talking about a restaurant in our area. And I asked them where it was. They both gave me shocked expressions on their faces, which confused me. I said I haven’t heard of that eatery before. They gave me even more confused looks and revealed the fact that I had been to that place before- twice.

Also, many times, it so happens that I don’t remember where I kept some of my things. Not even a trace of it in my memory bank.

After all this, I was sure that I was growing old (everyone does…but at least in my case, the signs of old age are seen much earlier than that it does in most other people).

Or maybe it was due to work. As they say, "An empty mind is a devil’s workshop", such destructive results are not surprising.

Or was I developing some kind of Multiple Personality Disorder and this memory loss was the result of some other personality resetting my memory bank?

Whatever!

As long as I don’t forget my name … well and good.

7 comments:

Jagan said...

eg u have quoted doesnt mean u got memory loss ..it simply means tht u dont care abt such stuffs or u got to work on ur observation skills ...

neways , if u r keen abt phsycoanalysis and dreams , try reading sigmund freud's notes .

Anonymous said...

Well said Jagan...

Do not worry Deepa ( I am sure you are not)..

I had similar chat with my friend last year when I saw 'Secret Window'..

Interestingly, you keep losing few memory blocks not only when u r workaholic but also when u r alcoholic.. ;-)

Anonymous said...

@ Jagan

I do have Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams...gotto read it fully...


@ $$$

R u the same person who was commenting under £££ ? Shifted ur country from UK to US?

Thankfully, Im neither a workaholic nor an alcoholic...

Anonymous said...

Deepa
Yes, the same guy..

Well,it was the other way around..

Keyboards at office has direct '£' signs..But my laptop doesn't have a direct one..So had to key in $$$ instead of £££..

Watching your blogspace for a while now..
Try blogging atleast on a weekly basis..

Anonymous said...

Hi £££ a.k.a $$$

These days I don't blog frequently coz either I donno wat to write abt or when I do have something to write,I don find time for that.

Anywayz... why don u use ur name instead of £££ or $$$...u don have to depend on the presence or absence of those keys to write ur name and I'm sure ur name is more valuable than the pounds or dollars that u prefer to be known as... :)

Anonymous said...

Deepa

You seem to have the shades of a decent writer. You have (or mastered?) the style of 'professional' writing.

Try to read more and write more.

Do you read Sujatha? Any tamil ?

Obviously, my name is valuable than £s and $s. And truely speaking, name doesn't matter. After all, names are refined symbols for identification, as long as you can identify me as $$$ or £££ or &&& or %%% or some three digit symbol ;-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks £££...

I donno if u cud call this style of mine 'professional'...it's too big a word for my writings.

No, I haven't read any Tamil novels, coz am slow at reading Tamil.