Memories, Identity, and the Temptation of Artificial Enhancement

Memories are an important aspect of human lives that shapes our identity; they also play an important role in guiding our decisions and strengthening our relationships. They go a long way in giving our love meaning, sometimes to smile about, and also shape our life journey towards the right direction while avoiding things that could pull us down based on our life experience. Having a good memory can also come in handy in diverse ways, especially during academic or interview sections, whereby you can trust yourself to remember everything you've read word for word. But if I were to be presented with an opportunity to be able to remember everything but on the condition that a chip would be inputted into my brain, would I agree to it or not?

The truth is that if I were asked these questions a couple of years ago, I would have given a different response compared to the one I'll be stating today. In fact, I'd respond almost immediately, unlike now that I had to spend minutes thinking things through to decipher the pros and cons of having my brain poked into because someone wants to grant me the ability to be able to remember things easily regardless of how long ago they happened. So what then would be my response to this amazing opportunity? I mean, being able to remember things easily would be a wonderful talent that can go a long way in helping me in many ways.

If you were to ask me this question when I was still a student, without thinking twice I would have availed myself of such procedures just so I could have a retentive memory that remembers everything, given the fact that such would come in handy during the assessment period for tests and examinations, and when I have a retentive memory, it means I'll have accurate answers to write down, and that'll give me a better grade and even avail me enough time to delve into other things, knowing fully well that I just need to read through a book once and I'll remember, unlike how I had to read and reread just to get the hang of the subject matter and understand so as to be able to put it back in my own words.

Even presently such a memory would come in handy for me during staff screening and promotion exercises, making me get promoted easily without much stress reading through different aspects of civil service rules, financial regulations, current affairs, and the like, since a single read will make me have it stored in my head, available to be remembered whenever it's required. Aside from these, it can also come in handy for me to just read more broadly and attend different competitions that test individuals on a particular field; it could be an avenue to win free money when I come out victorious in such question-and-answer questions.

Does that mean I'll avail myself to be operated on and have a chip put onto my brain? My response is a capital NO, and my reason for that isn't far-fetched. You see, given my little life experience, I've come to realize that everything isn't always as it's painted to look. I mean, in truth, they can actually give me the ability to remember anything I want, but what I'm concerned about that made me say so is one, whoever made such a chip would also want and have backend access to the chip so as to maybe see how well it's working or monitor what I'm doing, what's going on in my mind, and the like, and to me that's an invasion of privacy, which is something I don't want.

Secondly, almost everything has its side effects, including the medicine we use to get healed or better from illness, but then despite knowing this, many of us still use these pills because doctors know their side effects and how to combat them. Meanwhile, for this chip that'll be inserted in one's brain, I'm probably one of the first set of people who'll undergo such, and I won't want to be a lab rat that'll help doctors decipher the side effects these can have on humans, be it headache, explosion, or whatever it is. I don't want to be that person who takes such a risk just because I want to remember something.

Overall, I understand past knowledge is vital in shaping our future decisions and lives towards the right direction, but then I'd rather work with what my brain capacity can remind me than enhance it. After all, I believe if such information were to be important in the first place, then my brain wouldn't forget it in a hurry, just as it has kept some childhood memories fresh to date, despite the fact that it has forgotten some of the things that happened just yesterday.

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_{All photos are taken and edited on canva application photo library.}

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