The Beginning of Life as We Know It

The glue that binds a broken heart

Imagine this: after an exhausting day at work, you come home and notice an odd pain in your shin. Intrigued, you roll up your pant leg to find a large bruise about the size of a quarter. Although you can't recall falling or bumping into any exceptionally hard objects, the bruise continues to be a bother for the next few days. You never figure out how you might have acquired it, but your body still needs a sufficient amount of time to repair the damage that has been done. In other words, the wound has to be healed before the pain can be removed.

Are all injuries like this? Obviously physical wounds are, but do mental and emotional ailments take just as much time to heal? For most people, the answer to this question would be yes; many would even argue that the soul requires more care than the rest of the body might ever need. Why is it, then, that we get paid leave for a broken leg but not a broken heart? It's common sense that, without the proper treatment, a bone might never grow back properly. So, since a shattered heart requires even more intensive care, why don't we provide medical attention? How can anyone suffering from a broken heart even expected to get better? The answer is simple: they can't be. Almost everyone has had their heart broken at one point or another, but, under today's circumstances, it's unlikely that many people have fully healed. No wonder so many people turn to drugs, alcohol, and other abusive substances as a form of short-term relief.

So, can a broken heart be healed? Maybe so, but those suffering from a broken heart would need the proper care. We couldn't simply erase someone's memories... Or could we?

In theory, yes, we could. Memories are little more than sequences of pathways in our brains, so, by dissolving those pathways, we should be able to sufficiently remove a memory. However, most memories would leave "blind spots:" places where information that could once be accessed can no longer be reached. A few of these wouldn't do much harm, but, to truly cure someone of a broken heart, ALL memories causing him or her pain would have to be removed, therefore creating an abundance of blind spots. In most cases, this would leave the person with persistent feelings of confusion and emptiness.

Because there is no flawless cure, someone suffering from an emotional ailment can't simply choose whether or not he or she wishes to bear pain. Instead, the choice is what form of pain he or she wishes to bear; from knowledge, or from lack of knowledge.