'Please Let Me Keep This Memory, Just This One'...

So recently while I was doing all that calculus stuff, during one of my breaks I decided to watch a movie, I know, so slack. I felt for a serious movie with some fantasy/science fiction. Came down to Stranger Than Fiction or Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. So I watched both, lol...

Both movies are one of my favourite movies (weird sentence?), but I'm gonna talk about Eternal Sunshine because it's the last one I watched and it's more in my head. This is gonna be a long one, bare with me.
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Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, both incredible actors. It's about Joel (Jim Carrey), a calm and rational man, who's in a long-term relationship with a super spontaneous and overzealous girl, Clementine (Kate Winslet). One day he finds out that Clem underwent a procedure that erased all memories of him from her brain...

It sounds dumb? Actually it's fcucking brilliant! lol; it's amazingly well-done. The way the story eventually comes together is incredible. It's one of those movies you need to watch to the very end to get all your answers. The plot is so captivating, it leaves you with wanting to know what happens next...

It's a movie of destiny and fate. About relationships problems and dealing with life. What if there was a way to erase someone from your memory? Would you do it? Or would you just deal...

For whatever reason the characters may have; whether it be unhappiness, bordem, spontanaity, heartbreak etc. To them, all these reasons justfy having a person erased from their memory...

The movie begins with a massive twist to just throw you completely off from jump; but not so much that you're lost. Slowly but surely the plot fills in the blanks and provides answers to all the questions retained in your head. It's one of those movies you can watch more than once and take more out of it each time. I know I took a lot more out of it now than the last time I watched it, that's probably why I'm writing this.

This time around I got more then just plot and storyline. I took away meaning and emotion. It's truly the ultimate story of destiny. The theme of relationships really stuck. Basically Clementine erased Joel from her memory because she was unhappy. Their relationship got boring to her and she was disappointed at their inability to connect. Even though she loved him, she felt that these faults would never be corrected...

After this, when Joel visited her at work and she had no recollection of who the hell he was, he couldn't live with the pain. And he too, with reluctance, got the procedure done...

At one point in the middle of the mind-erasing, as he re-lived the memories in his head, he realized that there were too many good times and he refused to have her completely gone. So he tried to fight back and stop the procedure. This part shows you that you don't know what you have until it's gone/leaving/slipping away...

Sometimes, we have such little appreciation for the situations we are in. During the bad times, we forget about the good times. We forget that in the bigger picture, where we're at is where we really wanna be--we just need to appreciate the blessings...

After the procedure, the two eventually meet again, and boom they are immediately attracted to each other, I guess it's fate. It shows if you're meant to be someone, there will always be an attraction. They connect again as if their years together never happened--to get to this point though, it gets twisted.
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No lie, I saw this quote from the movie [below] on Facebook somewhere on a friends page randomly. Just don't remember whos otherwise I'd give a shout, lol. Not like anyone's reading this...

(Joel: I could die right now, Clem. I'm just... happy. I've never felt that before. I'm just exactly where I want to be.)

Before their memory was erased the doctor asked them why they want to erase this person and recorded it. Naturally they list the faults of the other person and all the things that push their buttons...

When they do meet again, these tapes are evidently played to them, and reveal all these 'list of faults' of the other person. All the things that they dislike about the other person are revealed just hours after they met for the 'first time'...

It got me thinking. Imagine if before you started a relationship with someone, you were told everything you would ever hate about them. If you found out right then and there all the things you would grow to dislike; all the things that would potentially lead to a break up...

All their faults and insecurities. All their turn-offs and negative tendencies. I guess there would be no opportunity to love and no mystery.

Imagine being told those things before you're in love? Before the relationship has a chance to take off? Would you still give it a try?...

I think, I still would. These are the things that can be overcome, it just takes a certain mindset to get over them. Yeah it's easier to look past these things when you're in love, but when it happens in the beginning, it's like being given the opportunity to mold the perfect start to a relationship? Kinda interesting...

Think of all the lessons you learn while in a relationship, like the: 'I shouldn't have done that', 'I shouldn't act like that anymore' or 'I know i shouldn't do that anymore'. If these things are already brought up in the beginning, you already know what the other person doesn't like about you; the learning curb is eliminated and you already know how to act to keep them happy...

For instance, while in a relationship, say you eff up and do something your partner doesn't like. After that moment you work towards changing that fault. But, if you were told in the beginning, you would naturally work to change it immediately, before the relationship even takes off; and potentially stop effing up as much all together. You just jumped ahead a couple weeks, months even; or avoided a potential break up...

The movie showed me that some couples break up for completely surmountable reasons; these reasons may not even be the end all be all and can still be overcome. In the movie, when they were faced with this situation they were questioning whether they should even continue to pursue each other...

After hearing what they don't like about each other via the cassette tapes. They question whether they should even start the relationship again because of the previous failure. But they take it for what it is and they live in the moment, the here-and-now. After hearing the tapes, they say:

Joel: I can't see anything that I don't like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me.
Joel: Okay.
Clementine: [pauses] Okay.

They just say okay. They accept it. They accept the possibility of failure. I guess that's what you do in relationships, you make things work against adversity. If it's worth it, you cherish it and work to preserve it.
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I don't know, it made me think/reflect a lot. Brilliant frggn movie. In terms of myself, I know what I have, I love what I have. I would work through anything and everything to preserve what I have; because I know, ultimately and above all, I'm happy. Bottom line, every moment of unhappiness and every fight endured, is tiny; it's all about the bigger picture.

I'm out like memories from the brain...