Life Without Memory Is No Life At All

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In "The Lost Mariner", Oliver Sacks presents a case study of Jimmie G., who suffered from Korsakov's Syndrome, which boils down to having no short-term memory.

Sacks quotes Luis Bunuel, who has this to say about memory:

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realise that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all...Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.

I remember telling someone a long time ago that I think life begins when we first start to form memories...when we start remembering things...because Bunuel's right: life without memory is no life at all.

We were discussing whether life begins at conception. I remember that. And I remember how it suddenly hit me that memory was what made life have meaning.

Like in the case of Jimmie G.? Sacks has a conversation with Jimmie, asking him how he feels, and Jimmie sort of scratches his head and says, "How do I feel? I cannot say I feel ill. But I cannot say I feel well. I cannot say I feel anything at all."

And when Sacks asks him, "Do you enjoy life?" he answers, "I can't say I do..."

"You feel alive though?"

"Feel alive? Not really. I haven't felt alive for a very long time."

And to this, Sacks writes, His face wore a look of infinite sadness and resignation.

I don't know why, but I remember a story similar to this one. I watched it on some news program several years back. And I always remembered it and even thought about it from time to time. Who knows why?

In "The Lost Mariner", Sacks talks about how it's like Jimmie G. lost a sense of self...and I think that's what clicked with me.

There are some days, where I feel like I've lost a sense of myself, too.