Remember the Darkness - Forget the Light

While reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, i came across many lines of the book that really hit me. The quote that was most memorable for me was 'you forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.' Not only is this sentence too relatable to ignore, but it is also completely relevant to my own life. Really attempting to remember something good is a challenge. A good dream can fade from your memory in seconds, no matter how hard or how long you sit there trying to recall the details. Then there is the aspect of trying to forget something, ironically making you remember it again. The more you attempt to get something out of your head, the more you are thinking about it - bringing it forth and refreshing the incident in your mind over and over. This quotation took place in the novel when the father was forced to murder a man basically on top of his son. The gore and horrific images haunted the son's mind for days, days in which he was absolutely silent. Images that cannot be erased from the mind seem to have embedded themselves deep in your memory- so far they are unable to be retrieved. Another aspect of the novel i took from this particular quote was that the bad sometimes overrides the good. In this book especially, the difficulties they face are their main focus. They are constantly waiting for something to go wrong, and are wholeheartedly surprised when things actually work out for the better. Even with the father's reassurance throughout their journey, the young boy only knows of the things he has seen- most of the sights being horrific. If he were to forget what he remembers - what would be left? What would he even want to remember from his life? The darkness they face each day seems to be a reflection of their minds. A place where the images of what the world has become are stored, either to be remembered or forgotten. The Road and this quote have taught me that life is certainly worth living to the fullest, spent making good memories that could one ay be forgotten. But it is the bad memories that shape us into who we are and allow us to grow and develop so we can in fact live this one life we have in light rather than darkness.