Perhaps this happens to you. It’s a creepy feeling, regardless. You’ve heard a lot about a movie and you decide to see it. Since you’re not rich you decide to wait until it comes to a streaming service to which you already subscribe. So far I’m sure you’re with me. One evening, when the timing seems right, you sit down to see it. You don’t know how it will end, but some scenes look familiar to you. You nevertheless enjoy it—the jokes are fresh to you and you laugh. You figure that you must’ve seen the familiar parts in the trailer. You think the movie is quite good, and your spouse agrees. Haunted by that uncanny feeling that parts were memories instead of just a trailer, you do some investigating only to learn that you did indeed see it before. And it was only five years ago.
My memory is still reasonably good, I think. I can recollect various movies from different ages of my life—including five years ago—but others failed to stick. I hate to admit it, but this has happened to me more than once. I’ve watched a movie, written a blog post on it, posted it, only to discover that I’d seen the film before and had even written about it. Perhaps there’s too much stimulus entering this limited brain I have. I can’t help but think it has to do with my work schedule; I started having such things happen when I was chained into a 9-2-5 day. Before that, life seemed much more easily handleable. As proof I would put forward the fact that my memory for movies, books, etc., before being dismissed from my calling is much better than it is for the years since. Career malfunctions can have lasting effects. A therapist once told me I was suffering PTSD.
Of course, I might just be getting older. Still, it seems that memory works better in some circumstances than in others. Movies have been an important part of my life, especially since being forced out of academia. It’s troubling to find myself forgetting them. As much as I enjoy cinema, I have limited time for watching films, and if one I rewatch wasn’t very good the first time, I’ve just used up a valuable Sunday afternoon when I could be researching my next book. That’s the human dilemma, I suppose. I Just can’t get over the idea that it has to do with work. If it weren’t for that, the next book would be done already. I’m sure this happens to everyone. At least those with 9-2-5 jobs, if I remember correctly.
Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash
