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.