The World Forgetting, By The World Forgot

I finally watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind earlier on Tuesday and it was, to my surprise, very much less confusing than I thought it would be.

I had only seen two other Kaufman-written films before (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) but I somehow got the idea that his stories are mind-fuckingly confusing, like Lynch's but without the darkness and nightmarish atmosphere.

Eternal Sunshine I therefore found to be very lovely and sweet even as I thought it a little depressing — like the fact that even having memories wiped from their minds, people still do the very things they want to forget.

I mean, on the one hand, I guess the story shows how history is doomed to repeat itself if it isn't kept in mind or memory (which also means if one doesn't learn from it). On the other hand, what I got from the film is that life is pre-determined, predestined — you make the same decisions even when given another chance to start over ... because you're meant to.

My personal belief is that life unfolds along a path that is created from the choices you make — a choose-your-own-adventure, as it were. I'd be happy to be caught in a time loop if only to be able to learn about the myriad of ways my life could've/might've turned out, based on every single decision I make on any given day.

Also: ah, Pope. He seems to have the best lines about being forgotten by the world:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd ...

'Eloisa to Abelard'

Versus:

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
          Tell where I lie.

'Ode on Solitude'

(Talking about poetry, hipsters with their rolled cuff pants and jeans never fail to recall poor ol' Prufrock: "I grow old … I grow old …/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.")