As i met with friends for some after work drinks tonight we got chatting about various topics and one which spurred an interesting memory for me.
The conversation revolved around documentaries (as i had just seen a couple of good ones) and then it brought me straight back to the most moving and emotional documentary i have seen to date called 'Unknown White Male'. The story is worth viewing as it captures the experience of a man named Doug Bruce who suffered a rare type of amnesia which effectively wiped out his entire memory right from birth up until the moment he came to find himself on a subway heading to Coney Island.
This case is extraordinary, which is why it captured my attention all those years ago while channel surfing and finally landing on a program worth sticking to for more than five minutes. After sitting amazed as if in a hypnotic state i found myself hooked.
My reaction was quite emotional at the time and i remember shaking from observing what was ultimately a self-discovery of life starting from adulthood. Due to this absolute mystery of a condition Doug had been robbed of not only himself and the very essence of what made up his character and personality, but he was having to learn everything from scratch. He went from a competent and confident adult to a soul searcher that only had the guidance of his family and friends to piece together bits of his history. The craziest part is what happens next when he discovers more and more about his new world and what it means to be the new Doug, so to speak.
I tried to calm my reaction, which i have to say was raw and very real because in reality this documentary was telling a story of what could be seen as a true nightmare. If you think about it, the memories and experiences that we have all live up in our head. So with this in mind it seems impossible to continue to be ourselves and know who we even are if those memories are stripped bare.
I felt empathetic towards Doug's situation because i realised the true value of our memories. They are something that only you can have and hold dear and no one else can ever take away or buy or steal from you. Once memories are implanted they stay for life. I thought this was a given but the amnesia story tells a different tale and it will scare you to bits.
The morale of this story is to watch the documentary so that you too can appreciate the importance of your memories: it is the best thing we will ever own and it will be the saviour for whatever life throws at us. Here's to making some great new memories and to keeping those old ones locked away safely in a special place in our heart.
A clip of the documentary courtesy of Youtube.
The conversation revolved around documentaries (as i had just seen a couple of good ones) and then it brought me straight back to the most moving and emotional documentary i have seen to date called 'Unknown White Male'. The story is worth viewing as it captures the experience of a man named Doug Bruce who suffered a rare type of amnesia which effectively wiped out his entire memory right from birth up until the moment he came to find himself on a subway heading to Coney Island.
This case is extraordinary, which is why it captured my attention all those years ago while channel surfing and finally landing on a program worth sticking to for more than five minutes. After sitting amazed as if in a hypnotic state i found myself hooked.
My reaction was quite emotional at the time and i remember shaking from observing what was ultimately a self-discovery of life starting from adulthood. Due to this absolute mystery of a condition Doug had been robbed of not only himself and the very essence of what made up his character and personality, but he was having to learn everything from scratch. He went from a competent and confident adult to a soul searcher that only had the guidance of his family and friends to piece together bits of his history. The craziest part is what happens next when he discovers more and more about his new world and what it means to be the new Doug, so to speak.
I tried to calm my reaction, which i have to say was raw and very real because in reality this documentary was telling a story of what could be seen as a true nightmare. If you think about it, the memories and experiences that we have all live up in our head. So with this in mind it seems impossible to continue to be ourselves and know who we even are if those memories are stripped bare.
I felt empathetic towards Doug's situation because i realised the true value of our memories. They are something that only you can have and hold dear and no one else can ever take away or buy or steal from you. Once memories are implanted they stay for life. I thought this was a given but the amnesia story tells a different tale and it will scare you to bits.
The morale of this story is to watch the documentary so that you too can appreciate the importance of your memories: it is the best thing we will ever own and it will be the saviour for whatever life throws at us. Here's to making some great new memories and to keeping those old ones locked away safely in a special place in our heart.
A clip of the documentary courtesy of Youtube.
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