Sunday morning.

"Why do we study history?"

"Well, we study history to know what happened in the past?"

"But why do we want to know what happened in the past?"

"Because it's just interesting, frankly."

EP wears a metal medical alert bracelet around his left wrist. Even though it's obvious what it's for, I ask him anyway. He turns his wrist over and casually reads it.

"Hmm. It says memory loss."

EP doesn't even remember that he has a memory problem. That is something he discovers anew every moment. And since he forgets that he always forgets, every lost thought seems like just a casual slip - an annoyance and nothing more - the same way it would to you and me.

- Excerpt from the article: Memory by Joshua Foer

This issue of the National Geographic has been lying in my room for almost a month now, and only this morning I had the chance to read it. The cover reads: MEMORY Why we Remember, Why We Forget. It pains me to know that there are people like EP who cannot and will not be able to recall anything. Memory is the only thing we can hold on to when those people we love leaves us. When we can't be with someone, it is only through memory that we can be with them. Memory either takes away our sadness or aggravates it. Good thing I searched for the article on the WWW, or else, I would've posted the entire article here. Haha. Please click this link to read the full article.

And I would like to stress the end of the article:

We turn around and walk back down the street whose name he's forgotten, past the waving neighbors he doesn't recognize, to a home he doesn't know. In front of the house there is a car parked with tinted windows. We turn to look at our reflections. I ask EP what he sees.

"An old man," he says. "That's all."

Aww. :( Reading this article was like finishing a good novel. You know the feeling you get after reading a book? Your mind continues to be preoccupied with thoughts about what you've just read for hours and hours. Hay.