"Memento", The Manner In Which We Continue To Happen

If most of us were to come across a young shepherd struggling with a snake that had bit into the shepherd's throat, any one of us would view this event with horror and relief. It should go without saying why one would react with horror, but to clarify what is meant by relief, the simple thought comes to mind: “I'm glad that's not me.” When Zarathustra came across the shepherd, horror was accompanied by nausea rather than relief. Zarathustra could take no refuge in relief, for such recourse is a luxury solely for the herd animal, a reactive mammal that does not create values for itself. Why does Zarathustra feel nausea where the herd feels relief? What is meant by “nausea” in this context?
While relief is meant to imply a distance that one has from the situation at hand, nausea is more a representation of the thought: “That is me!” This nausea is not meant to infer identity, but rather a sameness of condition. In this essay I will draw more on the distinction between nausea and relief, and I will use the film Memento, to demonstrate how each of us is partaking in self-deceit when disposed toward relief. My aim will be to explain Nietzsche's notion of eternal return, and to present a particular interpretation of the film that indicates the conditions of Nietzsche's themes in our own lives. From this I hope to show that while relief may be comforting, it is nothing short of an easy way out from having to work at constantly becoming.
Eternal Return
Nietzsche's circular conception of time is meant to rival the popular linear notion of time. The latter is a construction of the Priest, and is meant to establish human origins in original sin. We are sinners from the start, and all one can look toward in the future is redemption from the past as the final goal of man through time. In this sense one believes the future will be different than the past, but one is constrained to live in a resentful manner if this is to be the case. It is Nietzsche's genealogy that examines the idea of resentment, the primary weapon of the slave revolt that says “No” to everything outside of itself, everything foreign to it. Those who express resentment are living reactively, depending on forces exterior to oneself in order to act. This impotence of the heart is unable to create values in an active manner—not depending on anyone or anything else. Active living requires a constant willing in the midst of a forever changing world, and as such, Christianity advocates a hostility towards the physical, towards impermanence, and views time as having a set beginning and end. No amount of physical change can upset that order—there is no place for one to be active. To do so is to take allegiance with the body and to give in to “sin”. This is an ideal reactive way of living in that one in the present is merely believed to be the result of original sin. In this conception of time, all one ever does is respond to that cause, that origin. Through the bible, sin was meant to encourage spite towards impermanent bodies, as an “evil” disruption to the order of time. It's in this manner that man is hidden from himself, and is influenced to resent oneself as a creature of change, whose nature has the capacity to create. It's through this Christian rhetoric that man attempts to master the world as opposed to mastering oneself.
A linear construct of time entails a commitment to a beginning, and an end. A circular conception, however, entails neither of the two traits, but instead occurs infinitely, and implies a commitment to the self. Nietzsche viewed time in such a circular way, and referred to it as the “eternal recurrence” (I will refer to it as the “eternal return”). In part three of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, under the section entitled “On the Vision and the Riddle”, Zarathustra explains his insights into the eternal return:
"“Behold,” I continued, “this moment! From this gateway, Moment, a long, eternal lane leads backwards: behind us lies an eternity. Must not whatever can walk have walked on this lane before? Must not whatever can happen have happened... Must not this gateway too have been there before?... For whatever can walk—in this long lane out there too, it must walk once more."
Nietzsche believes this sense of time to be far more life-affirming than the linear way. Interpreting time in this manner better enables one to see oneself as one who can become self-mastered.
One may be quick to interpret Nietzsche's sense of time as being one that claims everything simply repeats itself. This is so, but in not so analytic a manner. The analytical interpretation may think that the exact same moment, or collection of moments, occur again and again. Nietzsche's claim is not to be understood literally, but rather metaphorically, in that passing moments share a sameness with one another, but they are not identical. The sameness they share is one of kind, they are the same kind of moments in the sense that one, in the throes of existence, is constantly having to will in the moment, is having to constantly work with states of becoming—for nothing is permanent. So while one may will oneself to exhibit kindness to one's beloved in the moment, that instance passes, and it would be in vain for one to attempt to hold onto the self as being kind in light of a single instance. One must continue to exhibit kindness in the moment in order for kindness to be the founding value to the relationship between one and one's partner. As the moment passes, so does the active value, and one is constantly having to work at creating value. It's in this sense that one can relive the same kind of life of the past by looking at the past and interpreting it as a challenging question: “Would I will that way again?”
Reflecting back to the shepherd and his struggle with the snake—a creature in various cultures that is thought to represent the circular conditions of existence in that it circles around to swallow its own tail—the shepherd bit the head off the snake and laughed in triumph. It was in this moment that the shepherd changed into something more than a reactive human. Zarathustra yearned to laugh like this—laughter that signifies a mastering over the eternal return; to be self-mastered in that one no longer is imprisoned by a beginning and end; to be undaunted by the notion of having to continually work at creating value. Given that we are all subject to time, it is a lack of will for anyone to look at the shepherd's struggle with relief.
Memento
Who is it that lives in relief? Those who follow the Priest, the herd, are disposed to an existence that indicates distance from life-affirming activity. However, these types of people are the consequent of generations past. It is not hard to imagine that they are completely ignorant of eternal return, nor do they have any sense of it's occurrence. What of the man who, like Zarathustra, views the shepherd's struggle with nausea, interprets the matter as being indicative of his own struggle, and because of which, flees to relief? What if this flight was so well fueled by nausea that the relief taken to allows one to forget that one ever felt noxious? In Genealogy, Nietzsche discussed two different types of forgetting, but it is the kind that guides one into habit and routine that will be under review. Forgetting, in this sense, is an account of how one loses sense of how one's values came to be, and how one comes to habitually accept values due to their utility. This kind of forgetting is a foundational factor for the herd instinct. While most forget without realizing it, who is it that wills to forget? Let's look at Leonard Shelby.

• “I have this condition.”

Leonard Shelby begins as our protagonist of the story, but as we will come to see he is actually not that at all. Leonard is a man who suffers from a rare condition of short-term memory loss. He acquired this condition from an injury he suffered while defending his wife during a burglary. He's able to remember everything before the accident, but is unable to make new memories since then. It's in this way that everything seems to fade for Leonard, so if a conversation goes on for too long, he will forget how it started, and having met the person he's talking to. One question that should come to mind is, “how can someone operate with this kind of condition?” Answer: Tattoos and conditioning.
The plot of the film involves Leonard pursuing the burglar that killed his wife and gave him his injury. This task is seemingly impossible for him if it were not for the tattoos he puts on himself that list facts about his investigation, the primary one written across his chest: “John G. raped and murdered my wife.” Assisting the tattoos are photographs he takes of his environment and people he meets with notes attached to them concerning their relevance to him.

• “Remember Sammy Jenkins.”

Leonard has conditioned himself to refer to his pictures to know about people and the world, and to look to his tattoos for evidence of his progress (and to get tattooed when he discovers a vital bit of information). Another aspect of his conditioning is to recall the events pertaining to a man that also has his condition: Sammy Jenkins. Leonard uses this tale to inspire himself to remain conditioned: Sammy ended up killing his own wife, on accident, because he lacked conditions to enable him to remember that he had already given his wife several insulin shots (within a short period) for her diabetes. All three elements: tattoos/photographs, conditioning, and Sammy make Leonard's life possible.

• “Maybe you should start investigating your self.”

Leonard is very much living with a herd instinct. His three elements allow him to better fit into his routine, and his habits are strong in that his discourse goes without question. Seeing as he can't remember what inspired each tattoo, he just assumes their validity in regards to his investigation as a result of a valid historical process. If we see the tattoos as values meant to better enable him to achieve his goal, he has forgotten their origin. This matters little to him because to investigate the origin of the facts would actually begin an investigation of himself, which has actually already happened. Toward the end of the film, Leonard is presented with a new photograph taken months prior to the events we are witnessing now. The photo features Leonard, bloody and smiling, and he is informed that he has already killed John G. The revelation comes minutes after he has killed a man, that his tattoos lead him to, named Jimmy Grants; not exactly “John G.”, but close enough to allow him to complete his purpose... again.
What Leonard discovers in this moment is that the source of most of his tattoos were originally manipulated by him knowing that he would soon forget that he had distorted the source. This forgetting has put him in a better position to live a life of habit, and to be mastered by eternal return. Each time he kills a “John G.”, instead of making a tattoo of it, he lets himself forget in order to get caught up in the routine once again. What's important to observe is that moments before Leonard forgets his involvements he is confronted with a sense of his circle, with nausea. In this short time he's fully conscience of the notion of past John G's, and that he's done all this before—he is all too aware of the shepherd's struggle. This might inspire hope in the audience at first, that he has the chance to take hold of his life, master the snake, and in doing so, master himself. This is not what happens, and this may be due to one more bit of nausea: Sammy's story is in fact his story. Leonard's wife never died from the attack, and it was Leonard who accidentally gave her an insulin overdoes.
As long as Leonard lives in habit, the snake will always catch him by the throat. He is very aware of this in these few moments in which he is presented with what he's really done many times over. However, this nausea turns to serve as his inspiration for relief. It's absolutely tumultuous for him to think that not only has his purpose of being an agent of justice passed, but is also a lie. Constant becoming is too much for Leonard to face, and so he continues to allow himself to forget his every chance at mastering the moment.
Memento As a Mirror
My interpretation of the film is to see it as a mirror, similar to how others may view other art pieces and forms. I find it fascinating to think of one who has the sight for eternal return, but would much rather live amongst the herd. Given Leonard's feelings of nausea at the realization of the sameness of events over time, I can't help but conclude that his disposition of relief is grounded in false pretenses, but isn't any relief of this kind grounded just the same? Do we not see this relief in others on a daily basis?
Before we get to these questions, there are other aspects of the film production itself that assist in drawing the audience into Leonard's struggle with becoming. His flight to relief is also a flight towards a linear conception of time. Leonard's original sin consists of him having not protected his wife when he could have. The future is a path that leads to his only possibility—redemption by murdering John G. There are no instances of activity on this road, but every act is merely a reaction to what is required to fulfill this path. He blindly accepts every moment as a resulting consequence of his investigation, and his tattoos serve as “evidence” of progress. The style in which this film is directed gives the audience a sense of what it may be like to live in this blind manner that is unique due to his condition. Anyone entering the film with presumptions of a linear conception of time may be thrown off balance in that the story is told backwards.
The first scene itself moves backwards! We watch as Leonard stares at his latest kill (that we come to understand later as another distorted path to a “John G.”), the Polaroid picture of his deed goes from showing a dead body to fading into a blank white plastic sheet, and the bullet that he shot at the victim exits out from the back of his head and returns into the barrel of Leonard's gun. The audience does not yet realize that this backward tactic is actually foreshadowing the theme of the film. We start at the end, and end at the beginning, and, as it was mentioned above, this has all happened before. Not only are we watching events unfold backwards, we are also watching snippets of the past move forward. To clarify, we are going back and forth between two different moments in time, each of which will come to meet each other in the middle. The past consists of following Leonard as his prepares to pursue the man we've already seen him kill, and theses scenes are in black and white. The end, where the movie began, is in color, and is confusing for the audience seeing as it is unclear as to how and why he's in the situation he's in. Is this not how it is for Leonard, who is in a state of constantly forgetting: not knowing where he is, how he got there, and why he's there? We learn through his habit: tattoos and conditioning.
When both segments of time converge, we start the sequence in black and white, and the screen slowly turns to color as it comes to meet the corresponding sequence. I interpret this as the gateway that Zarathustra mentions:
“And if everything has been there before before—what do you think, dwarf, of this moment? Must not this gateway too have been there before? And are not all things knotted together so firmly that this moment draws after it all that is to come?”
For the audience the story moved backward only to meet up with events moving forward, and at the meeting point we find Leonard engaged in the same struggle as before. For anyone who wishes to imagine the movie played in a linear fashion, starting at the beginning and ending “appropriately”, are not the events we come to see the same as those we started with? Does a linear version give us a relief from the circularity of the sequence? Given that we know Leonard does not tattoo John's murder on himself, and that his beginning is a lie, it's safe to assume that he will be back at this same gateway later.
Conclusion
Similar to how Leonard exhibits a lack of will by reacting with relief when confronted with nausea, anyone is equally lacking when spectating the shepherd's struggle and believes oneself a spectator. Leonard is capable of biting the head off the snake, but believes it's far more comforting to let it consume him. As long as the snake continues to conquer, so will the eternal return master him. Such defeat is ironic in Leonard's case in that he appeals to linear time. It's as though the snake's venom caused its victim to hallucinate and see it as a friendly neighbor. Heidegger was thinking along similar lines in his dichotomy between authentic Being and the they-self. Heidegger viewed authenticity as a state of constant becoming, reached by anxiety, taking continual work. This work is made more difficult by the fact that life as a they-self, amongst the herd, is tempting.
A life without such work is very relieving for some, to not trouble oneself with impermanent creation. However, I do not feel such comforts are as enticing as Heidegger makes them out to be. Is there not any sort of excitement to think of Leonard as mastering himself and moving onto a new project? I do not find it to be problematic to think that one may feel slight relief in completing a project, which in this sense is appropriate as that project is no longer oneself, but best to be accompanied by excitement at the notion that one is alive and has the capacity to exhibit will. The eternal return expresses a constant sameness of circumstances, but this does not mean we must continue to be the same and fall prey to reactivity. The hostility toward both change and eternal return stems from both laziness to will, and a fear that one is unable to. However, when juxtaposed to the art of dancing, of taking charge of oneself within the eternal return, I can hardly view laziness and cowardice as being remotely appealing.