Self & Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Once again, when we discuss our image of self we are dealing primarily with the brain and its multiple layers and functions. The part of self that is controllable is the voluntary and conscious part of our brain. We control most of our daily choices and actions that create an identifiable personality of an individual. How we express emotions can be controlled. Depending on the person we can control our emotions and activities to different degrees. If you are knowledgeable of your actions and emotions, and the effects of them you can control that part of your self. People who are strong willed and organized can sort their thoughts and easily control the different parts of their self. Different parts of our brain control these different aspects of our self. We cannot completely control all the aspects of self, but those that we can we should always monitor and try to improve whenever possible.

This is a way to view order and chaos in the human brain. We try to organize and control the different parts of our personality, but sometimes it is impossible. The constant change and flow of our minds and our emotions can create chaos, but when they are all combined they create a complete self that shows us who we really are. There are too many aspects of our psyche that are beyond our control, but out of the chaotic unknown that we often view them as, a complete human being emerges. This person is tangible and their body and conscious thought creates order.

The movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind confronts the issue of memories, how we define ourselves, and what effect altering the mind has on a person. A philosophical debate that is central to the story’s main conflict is if it became possible to medically erase memories, should a person willingly give up a part of their past. The main character, Joel, has part of his memories removed from the past two years of his life in an attempt to forget about an ex-girlfriend. Anything that could trigger a memory of her is removed and the doctors destroy parts of his brain that relate to her in anyway. This makes the audience think about their own experiences and allows them to imagine a life without any bad memories. I would not want to live a life that is perfect but filled with memory holes. I think memories are what make us who we are and without them we lose our selfs. The movie shows us how we are affected by the outside world, but more importantly it shows us the value of our memories.

The title of the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is ingenious. There are several different parts to the meaning of the title. Eternal Sunshine relates to the never ending happiness one supposedly would have without any bad memories. However, the main character lives a dull unhappy life. He destroyed all the good experiences of his relationship with the bad so now he is forced to live in ignorance without bliss. The Spotless Mind refers to the mind as a blank slate. It shows minimal emotions and memories expressed in an empty mind. We see this mind as a beautiful, spotless canvas that is untarnished or besmirched by negative memories, but we also see it as ugly because the canvas is untouched. The artist needs to paint and draw all over the canvas to create their completed masterpiece. This is all connected to the films idea of memories and the use of technology to remove the ‘spots’ on our past experiences. Our minds are the canvas, and our memories are the images on the canvas. I personally would prefer to have a beautiful canvas with a few slips of the artist’s brush evident on its surface then the empty canvas.

Picture taken from: http://www.freenaturepictures.com/pictures/lake-sunset-7.php