Ryan Cordero Thursday Post

Barnes makes interesting remarks about the concept of memories. My favorite line about memories is when Barnes writes, “…what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed”. Memories are malleable and are normally affected by emotions and bias. It’s hard to remember specific facts, but it’s easy rethink events to suit your insecurities. Memories are dangerous because we end up harming ourselves by subconsciously changing how we remember things and there’s nothing we can do about it. This reminded me of the movie Memento in which the main character only holds onto one memory, which he takes as concrete fact, but the whole time his own mind changed the events and the memory he took as fact was actually fiction. Adrian’s decision to commit suicide is easily the most intense part of the next section of Sense of an Ending. Since one of Tony’s friends also committed suicide while he was young we can see how Anthony has matured and developed as person. I think Adrian’s note represents the only way he felt he could separate himself from society. I made the same point when we discussed Dostoyevsky. Growing up everyone tells you that you can do or be whatever you want, which is a pretty blatant lie. Depending on your situation you really only have certain amount of option. For me and my peers we all have the same basic path, get good grades, get into a good college, get a degree, then another degree, then earn a good paying job or start your own company, all because that’s just how life works.