The Literate Kitty

Words can have multiple meanings, and sometimes, the differences are subtle. Take “exhaustion”. We hear the word, and tend to picture a body utterly worn out by some sort of grueling physical activity, such as that of a workman who pounds nails into roof shingles for a living, after spending eight hours in the blazing July sun, or maybe a triathlete at the end of his/her race. Exhaustion doesn’t manifest itself solely in the physical sense, though. Emotional exhaustion--that hollowed-out feeling which follows a period of intense grieving, for instance--can leave the body feeling just as fatigued as physical activity, and the same is true for mental exhaustion--such as when a person has thought long and hard about every aspect of a seemingly-insurmountable problem, in the fruitless search for a solution. Any one of them--or a combination thereof--can lead to burn-out, that state of being completely fed up--with a job, a relationship, a situation... or with life itself. A dangerous thin...

Fairy tales--and those who enjoy them--fall into two distinct camps. There are the frothy, don’t-worry-because-nothing-too-terrible-could-ever-possibly-happen stories, with their shiny-happy people and dreamy, feel-good endings. A bit of harmless frippery, if you will; pleasant but predictable, they’re perfect for Pollyannas and anyone in need of a few warm fuzzies.  And then there are those tales which avoid all light like the plague, opting instead to hurtle straight into the darkness. Here we find the ugly, wicked, and terrifying, with their nightmare-on-acid settings and less-than-peachy-keen endings. Unsurprisingly, it is these latter--the moody, atmospheric stories--which really resonate with me. (Well, what did you expect? One look at my über-furry boycat, and it’s obvious he’s over-qualified to provide all the warm fuzzies I’ll ever need. ;)) To say I was excited to hear about a new, modern-day fairy tale coming down the pike, then, would be something of an understatement. ...

What are we, if not the sum total of our memories? Whether for good or bad, everything we’ve done, seen, and experienced to this point has had a hand in shaping who we are. It’s not just the “juicy” bits that matter, either, such as how our recollections of those historic “firsts” (first kiss, first time going to a funeral, first time having sex, first time getting really drunk, first time falling in love, etc.) may have affected our future actions. Rather, it’s the memories of all the mundane stuff--our everyday interactions with others, the patterns and routines we take for granted--which play the biggest role in filling in the details, making us “us”. But what would happen if we didn’t have that built-in store of experiential memories, of things big and small accomplished and lessons learned, guiding us? How would the absence of things remembered affect how we see ourselves... and what havoc would it play with our sense of reality, and sanity?  These are the questions S.J. Wats...