A Clean Slate

Ever wondered that if you lost your memory, if would you end up being the same person you were before? Would you still have the same political beliefs, same tastes, same likes and dislikes? Now I know that memory loss often only affects explicit memory, like facts, data, names, etc. Implicit memory such as habits, tendencies and preferences are often untouched. I guess I should narrow the scope of the question. If you knew you lost your memory, and if your old friends didn't tell you they were your friends, would you still make friends with them and obtain the same level of friendship as you had pre-memory loss? What about a person you used to have a crush on, or used to be in love with, or an ex? Would you be attracted to them again? Would you even try and pursue a relationship with them? I've often wanted to do that to myself, clean my memory for a couple of years and see if the life I live would be at all similar to the life I live now. Would I still be the slightly neurotic, thrill-seeking, pensive, poetic, over-analyzing, stubborn man I am today? Would I make the same decisions I made in the past?

If you met an old flame or crush, would you feel the same spark that attracted you to them in the first place? I think it'd be interesting if we could have an experiment like that, if everyone lost their memory for a year or so and had a chance to meet everyone that had an impact in their lives. Would we take the same, or at least, similar paths? It's almost too easy to say, "Well, yes of course we would, because who we are hasn't changed just because we lost our memory". But at the same time, you can't deny that sometimes the paths we choose can be limited at that specific time by circumstances. Certainly circumstances are different this second time around right? For example, what if you fell in love with someone, but couldn't pursue them because they're your best friend's ex? If everyone lost their memory, then their wouldn't be that stigma looming over your head (not like you would have remembered that there was one in the first place). But meeting that person again with a clean slate, it'd be interesting to find out where things would lead to after the initial conversation...

"In prosperity our friends know us, in adversity we know our friends." - John Trevor Collins