I don’t want to have to be the one who mourns everything when everyone else has clearly forgotten. It’s mortifying. It’s mortifying to be the one who remembers
-Ryan O’Connell
When starting your journey in mastering the fine art of forgetting, it is important to understand that it is, first and foremost, an art. Like all arts, it takes time and effort to master. As with pottery or drawing, a solid understanding of the fundamentals is imperative; it is the foundation upon which your proficiency in this skill is built. This guide ensures that you begin with a solid foundation and build on this so that you can confidently forget as much as you want as well as you want. We have divided this guide into 4 stages, beginning with the basics that are essential for this art form and working our way up to make sure that by following this guide, you become a confident and capable forgetter:
- Forgetting Things
- Forgetting Memories
- Forgetting People
- Forgetting Yourself
Forgetting Things
This step is crucial to the art of forgetting. It may seem like the easiest step and one may be tempted to speed through it or perhaps even skip through it entirely, but the importance of a good grasp of this cannot be overstated.
We recommend that you begin with abstract things, they tend to be the easiest to forget. It’s practically human instinct to forget a deadline here or a chore there. Also, learn to forget abstracts that we agree upon as a society to keep things functioning as we have built them to; silly universal concepts like time and its measurements, like direction and the names assigned to objects in your language. Forget what day of the week it is now and then. Forget the time the news comes on, what the spice you need for a recipe is called, whether it was left or right that you turned at this intersection to go to the home you lived in as a child, how old you were when that home stopped being your home.
Now, you are ready to forget tangible things. You’ll realise that your grasp of forgetting abstract things helps here. This guide is written such that going from the first and up to the final step, each step is built on the preceding and supports the following. Having gotten accustomed to forgetting abstracts, forgetting physical things will come easier. You’ll find that it comes quite naturally to you to forget your keys, your earphones, the book you meant to take with you for the journey. You can now confidently move to the next step.
Forgetting Memories
This step may feel intimidating at first, but all you’ve learned in forgetting things has prepared you for this. Memories can be a bit tricky to get the hang of forgetting, especially if you are the sentimental type, but all it takes is consistent practice and you’ll be forgetting them in no time.
There are different ways of forgetting memories and each situation may call for a different one. This contributes to the difficulty of this step but with practice, you will learn what best works for you and in which situation. We place such an emphasis on practice at this stage because, for many forgetters, it is the hardest step of all. Many people give up at this stage and some try to forget at a higher level without learning how to forget memories. We are yet to see any that succeeded in doing this. Unfortunately, they kept remembering despite their best efforts. Only when they revisited and properly learned this step were they able to advance in the art form. If you are finding this step difficult, take comfort in the fact that most do. Memories can be sticky and stubborn and hard to let go of, but once you’ve mastered it then you are well on your part to becoming a skilled and adept forgetter.
As we’ve said, there are different ways to skin the proverbial cat that is forgetting memories and, depending on the situation, one method may be more appropriate than another. It may be best to erase the memory bit by bit in one situation, slowly losing the details until it becomes so faded that it is essentially a blank page. In another, you may need to lose a thing to lose the memory attached to it and in yet another it may be best to lose the memory then the thing.
We recommend you start small and then gradually take on more complex tasks. Forget the smell of the kitchen when your aunt was baking bread, the smell of the crayons you used to draw with as she baked. Notice how you forget as you do this, is it slowly or all at once? Take note of what comes naturally to you in different situations.
Move on to more complex things. Forget the colour of your favourite teddy bear then forget the teddy bear itself. Do you need to lose the teddy bear before you can forget it or can you have forgotten even when seeing it again? Can you throw it out without feeling anything or does it need to be lost for you to lose the memories of it? You need to know what type of forgetter you are, all artists must play to their strengths and you must know what your strengths are to play to them.
Forget the relief the sound of the school’s closing bell brought and the rush as everyone started packing up, then forget the names of the people in the school with you. Forget the smell of your grandmother’s perfume, the sound of her voice, the taste of her food. Keep at this step as long as you need to, you need to be skilled at it to forget people. You need to forget people.
Forgetting People
Once you’ve gotten the hang of forgetting memories, you’ll find people very easy to forget. Sometimes you’ll even find that you’ve forgotten them in the process of forgetting memories, that in erasing the memories with a person you’ve erased the memory of the person. This is why it is crucial to have a good grasp of the preceding step to be able to achieve this. Trying to forget people without knowing how to forget memories is like not completing your antibiotics; you’re just giving them a chance to come back stronger and more resistant.
Forget your best friend in primary school, forget their laugh, their name, their face. Have you forgotten those memories of your grandmother? Her food? Her scent? Her voice? Now forget her. If you’re having difficulties with this, forget more memories. Forget her sayings, the stories she would tell. Do you remember her still?
The trick with forgetting people is forgetting memories. If you find forgetting a person difficult, try forgetting everything around them. Forget the memories you shared, how they made you feel. As the memories with them fade, so will they.
Forget people, forget long-gone loved ones and long-lost friendships, forget people that were once close and people that were never close but you saw often. Forget the cashier’s face immediately after thanking them, your neighbour’s as soon as you enter your flat after exchanging pleasantries, the cousin you always played with when you were staying at your grandparents. This is the best preparation for the next step, the highest form of this art.
Forgetting Yourself
You already know how to forget people, but forgetting yourself is a difficult and demanding task. For every right way to do this, there are a hundred wrong ways. For every forgetter that accomplished this, there are a thousand that could not. This may seem discouraging at first, but you need not be discouraged. You’ve already started this artwork, even without realising it. For each person you forgot, you forgot who you were with them. For each memory you let go of, you came closer to completing this piece. Starting is usually the hardest part, and you’ve already done that. You just need to see it through now.
If every forgetter is completely honest, this is what they aspire to accomplish. Many hope to and even more try to, but very few can truly accomplish this. You, however, have come this far. You have prepared yourself for this, you are ready. Every step was leading you to this, and here you are.
Forget the things that mattered, why they mattered, the people that made them matter. Forget who you were, who you hoped to be, who you are. Forget past selves and their passions and dreams. Forget the future you hoped for and the you that hoped for it. Forget until nothing matters anymore, until you are free of the weight of memory and from the prison of remembering. Until you are light and free and empty.
We hope that this guide will help in navigating the wonderful and freeing world that is the art of forgetting. For more resources to learn to forget, click here.
