selective amnesia - solution to or cause of your troubles?
Posted by mansoor on 24 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: lifes anomaly's
When you think about it, stress is just a fiction of your imagination. Unless you specifically focus on something, it cant really get to you…
Only, the human body doesn’t see it that way. The subconscious has a very funny way of manifesting things which are brewing just under the surface, and when it bubbles over, it comes to the surface with such intensity that you are left wondering what the hell just happened.
I’ve developed a capability, or at least i think its a capability, to filter out certain thoughts, events and actions happening around me, a technique I call selective amnesia. It was based on the principle that if i don’t focus on it, it cant affect me. Over the years, I’ve been using it and advocating this technique to all and sundry as a very good method of living life. To quote a character, emma, from one of my new favourite tv show hotel babylon, ‘you’re making me unhappy charlie, and im a happy person’ just before she broke up with him, one shouldn’t let anyone or anything, much less any thought, to make them unhappy.
The principle is sound, and it serves me quite well in most cases.
Then there are some cases where it just breaks down… where the subconscious, bubbling with repressed feelings, finally tips over the limit and gushes out in a tepid mess of emotions. Suddenly, you see murphy’s law coming true all around you, that ‘anything which can go wrong, will go wrong and in the worst possible way’ and you look for scape goats, you look for someone to place the blame on and you search for that sliver of hope to keep your sanity intact.
It can’t be you, you rationalize. After all, you weren’t even thinking about it… and that nothing has happened in the last couple of weeks, months or even years which would justify things going wrong for you! but if you aren’t careful, this very rationalization consumes you… to such a degree that you are lost within the world of make believe that selective amnesia gave rise to.
You don’t see the forest for the tree’s…
You don’t see the underlying causes…
You just lash out and whoever’s near or dear…
And you start twirling helplessly in the vicious cycle that your life has just become…
.
.
.
until you forget about it and move on, because you’ve mastered the technique of selective amensia.
Mansoor,
Hello!
From one snowman to another:
I think the selective amnesia can be useful if you’re trying to get over a painful spot, especially… but, it seems a tad too intellectual and not engaging the body… where, as you say, the source of the pain is. I think dancing Tango (not in the company of your ex-girlfriend, of course), may be better. And certainly more fun.
All the best,
…
hello snowman! welcome the word!
truth be told, i was looking into dancing recently :p more of salsa than tango though.
the thing is, im too fat to be graceful :p but lets see… i hope to find some good dance programs soon.
thanks for the tip!
Memory still has a way of finding its way around from nooks and corners of the mind…it can be wiff of a perfurm, aroma, a sound, and u r again undone…
i gave up on tango / salsa learning dream too, why? Partners are required there too…how cruel …. seriously …And hey dont lash out…..
tanzilla: lol @ the irony! but yea, that in itself is a big issue. if i had known, i’d have taken you on as a partner for the dance class :p might have actually been fun
yaad-e-mazi azab hay cheen ley mujh sye hafza mera..
what ever;)
..and then u have me who ends up inhereting hyper tension from one parent - whch goes on to make life more miserable with skin psoriasis. yep! thats me alright!
stress is now in my system - i live for it…and about selective amnesia - it sets in with age. trust me - im speaking thru experience…and so life goes on!
unaiza: that was always your most favourite piece of poetry :p thanks!
psyched: i’ve got hypertension as well :S and the skin breakup is starting just now.. so i know what you mean by that! however, stress is in my system but not in my consciousness… if that makes any sense…
in the end, i guess life does really go on..
Jesus Christ! You people are stressin’ me out.
The whole reason why you go out to dance is to turn off the brain and let go… and dance.
And man, Tanzilla, who cares who your partner is… you’ll have fun, irrespective. Hell, you’ll have MORE fun if you don’t have a partner,… you get to dance with everyone without a guilty conscience! Though, if you get hooked on someone it’s nice having a partner… try http://www.tangonyc.com. You won’t be disappointed.
And snowman,… too fat? You must never have seen Paul Prud’homme dance. He’s not only larger than an exercise ball, but a hell of a lot more graceful than most people I’ve ever seen dance.
Go dance… and sing!
Snowman le deuxieme
elevenkites: for someone who needed some motivation, you certainly came along at the right time
the thing is, we (me and tanzilla) live in pakistan, and that too in diff. cities :S its kind of hard to come by dance classes over here unfortunately.. but yea, i’ll keep on looking.
eleven kites: Well many of the dance moves are pretty intimate, so yes the comfort part counts. i really dont want to get tHhat close with a stranger…
hey mansoor the differnece in our sizes would be pretty hilarious….not that ur big, im too minscule. anyhoo, there is some dance studio soemthing…..saw it on marina’s show, the waltz was pretty decent….have to search…
tanzilla: lets dance!