After severe short-term memory loss left him unable to recall recent events while keeping old memories intact, the creator argues that starting over is never a clean slate. Moving cities or losing a job feels like reinvention, but it's actually a painful struggle to rebuild identity with fragmented pieces of who you were.
This is chapter 1, The Myth of a Clean Slate, and how I rebuilt my life from nothing. Everyone thinks that starting over is interesting, it's different. But what they don't talk about is how much of a painful fight it really is. When I woke up, I didn't have short-term memory. I was like Guy Pearce from that movie Memento, if you've seen that. I'd do something and then 5 minutes later I just wouldn't remember what happened, who I was with, or what I did. And maybe you felt it too, if you move cross-country, you get up, you go somewhere and it's not— you don't feel like yourself. And maybe you had a job forever and you lose that job and you just don't feel like yourself anymore. It's not the same. It's not a clean slate. You just, you get up and you have to go with what you have. And for me, it was hard because I'd still have the memories of who I was, what I did, but I wouldn't be able to remember stuff from long ago all the time. I'd remember stuff from long ago because my long-term memory was there. But the short-term memory was not. So it was kind of like a weird funk that I was in. I didn't feel like myself. It wasn't a clean slate. It was just an odd way of getting up and going. It's just something that happens, and that's how it started. Join me next time where I talk about when reinvention isn't optional. And this isn't for people who've just been in traumatic brain injuries or have had But who anybody wants to start over. Hit subscribe below, join me, and I'll catch you next time.
