What you can't un-see.

I was talking to my friend Kristen the other day about the fact that you can't un-see some things in life. Once you see it with your own eyes you never forget. As a kid I never understood what people who were really sick meant when they would say I don't want to be remembered this way. Now that I am older I truly understand. But it's not just that... It's porn pop-up that use to come up on computers. Whether you wanted to see it or not it is now embedded in your brain. That auto accident you passed with the covered body. The ASPCA extended commercial with the abused animals. These images that we can no longer un-see generally became the first image we think of when we remember that person, place, or thing.

For me these images have a very strong emotional attachment which is part of the reason they are images I will never un-see. I was passing an accident several years ago on my way home. I saw a car on the wrong side of the road with a motorcycle stuck in the front end there was a body that was on the roadside and police everywhere. That image is stuck in my mind forever because the guy on the motorcycle happened to be a friend of mine. Whenever people mention him the first thought is of that accident then it is followed by happier memories. But the first memory is now an image that I can never un-see.

With technology we can take photos or videos and immediately upload the images to the world wide web where everyone can see them. Because of this, I select what I want to see and what I don't ever want to see. For example the video of the Rodney King beating is all over the Internet. The little bit I saw on the news was more than enough to become forever embedded in my brain, I don't need to see anymore of that man or any person being beaten. Then there are TV show like Animal Cops, Kardashians, Animal Hoarders, plus crime drama re-enactments, that I just don't want to see. I'm not saying I want to ignore it, I just don't want to see it. So when people send me links to videos I don't watch all of them because I don't want to see something I might never be able to un-see. Remember that the next time a person sends you a video of something bad happening to a friend. Do you really want to watch a video of something you will never be able to un-see? I don't.