An essay I wrote for eng II hon. class.

Ganavya Doraiswamy
Ms. Wank
You are sitting on top of a beautiful mountain, with someone you absolutely trust. You are filled with an unexplainable lightness, for you feel charged with bliss. There are many moments in our life that we would rather overlook or disregard, and then there are the moments we wish would extend itself forever. Let us take a very common and routine example. I find myself bitterly fighting with my mother these days quite often. At that moment, when I fight with her, the only sentiment that I find myself capable of feeling towards her is anger. If so, what keeps me from storming out of the house? What keeps us on constant verbal communication, merely five minutes after a behemoth argument? The answer is rather simple. The capacity of us humans that enables us to remember our previous memories is what keeps us from cutting the thread.
The distinctive capacity of remembrance is a situation in which the soliloquy “such a gift…but yet such a curse” can be used. If we could not remember our happy moments, I doubt humans (being such highly social mammals) could survive a conversation poisoned with odium. Then again, we cannot forget what we’d rather forget and remember what we’d rather remember. After breaking up with a friend, all of the joyful moments we had shared with them would seem to suddenly erupt into our minds. Even though it seldom produces pleasure more than gloom, the capacity of remembering memories and acting towards it is what helps us survive in this world, and is thus unambiguously important.
I have claimed that our capacity to remember memories is what maintains us. The reason I had stated the above is because if we did not have our memoirs to remind us what mistakes we had made, we would keep on replicating the same mistakes. If we did not study in history that Hitler took control of the world and tortured people he disliked whilst the world stood immobile, we might just make the same blunder again. If we did not have the pictures of thin and anorexic men being shoved mercilessly into raging fires, we would probably let another Holocaust arise without our knowledge. Or, to put it in common terminology, the sense of ‘déjà vu’ would never be felt.
That is why, I believe, Nobel award winning author Elie Wiesel wrote his famed book Night, to remind the world what torturing events had happened while everyone did not stop their routines to save those thousands of poor souls being trapped in isolation and tormenting pains. His horrifying memoirs display how humans could transform into animals under such circumstances, and acts as a reminder to all of the fortunate ones who were not shoved into raging ovens alive.
That is why I believe memories, happy or sad, are extremely important to us. We are nothing but our thought; our ideas and our morals. Leonardo Da Vinci is remembered now, so many years after his death, for his ideas. Sigmund Freud is still looked up to for advice, so many years after his death… via his books. I still learn songs from my grandmother… two years after her death, from her hand written notes. I wholly, fully and entirely believe that we are absolutely required to keep our memories alive. Even if it is straining and hurtful to remember, by spreading our pain, we only give other the chance to experience what pain we underwent, without them having to go through the entire ordeal. Memories are very important.