Tom X Hart

Reading Elliot Rodger’s autobiography, I am struck by how much of his life consists of video games and films. Those compose a large chunk of his memories from an early age. Yet, he cannot describe any individual game. By contrast, he describes a rock he wanted to climb in detail.

The games and television and film do not constitute any memory as such, these were experience and experienced at length—perhaps remembered as “epic” or “enjoyable”. But there is no texture to the memory. We are living memoryless lives.