Wondering if “Unlearning how to remember” = “Learning to Forget”?

In our kindergarten days we played innumerable games such as building blocks, card games, board games which would help us to build a strong memory and remember things. After that when we went to school we were taught how to remember and memorize tables, answers for questions, fill-in-the-blanks, match the following and thousand such other things. Then moving to college we were taught to remember some advanced stuff. Ditto at work.

Well during all our life, we were taught how to remember. This shows how important it is in our life to remember things. Our sustenance is on remembering things. If life is a coin then remembering makes it’s one side.

My memory is strong enough because I always excelled at these games, but I do not remember a single moment where I was taught to forget things. If remembrance is important, then forgetting is equally important too. Forgetting hence makes the other side of the coin here. But just wondering why we were never taught “how to forget things”. Maybe the forget lessons do not exist. Or maybe the subject was very difficult to teach that god decided to leave it for the best teacher, Life, to deliver the “forget lessons”. I guess you folks agree too.

If remembering things gives us joy, happiness, sorrow, peace of mind, satisfaction then forgetting things does the same. Remembering pain gives us sorrow and forgetting pain gives us solace. Forgetting joyful moments gives us sorrow and remembering sorrow takes away our solace. This clearly approves how opposite the two sides are and so are their effects. So the question here is: does unlearning how to remember equals the art of forgetting things

I would not want to emphasize on why one should forget, but would surely like to emphasize on what is meant by forgetting. A lady defined the meaning of forgetting to me when I was out for a casual walk one evening. She had an explanation which made sense to me. As per her, there exists no concept of forgetting in this world. She defines forgetting as “Living with the things happened (which you want to forget) without letting them affect you. If you let those things affect you, then you will never be able to forget them. But if you allow them to not affect you, then you are certain to forget them. Virtually”. This simple statement was self-explanatory for me to learn how to forget.

Human mind is just like a penseive in which we actively store, by the act of remembering, our good and bad memories. We thrive and live our life by cherishing on these instances. So it’s not about unlearning how to remember, but learning how to remember and at the same time not letting it affect you.

Now we may concoct the fact why forget lessons do not exist upfront. Maybe because the concept of forgetting itself does not exist upfront. As per my personal view, the concept pseudo-exists and is revealed by life at an appropriate stage. The most important lessons are best taught and learnt in context instead in text. I have learnt my lessons in context hence sharing them in text here.