On Forgetting (Robert Lynd)

 About the Author:

Robert Lynd (20 April 1879 – 6 October 1949) was an Irish writer, editor, urbane literary essayist, socialist and nationalist. He also worked as a university professor.  He started his writing career by writing for a journal using the pseudonym, Y.Y.

Introduction:

“Forgetting” written by Robert Lynd is an amusing, satirical, and simple essay. In this essay, Robert Lynd has pointed out various professions to highlight the most common nature of forgetting things. He mentions that the tendency of forgetting things is more common among young people rather than adults. In this essay, he also appreciates people who have good memory and explains how absent-mindedness is a virtue. He mentions poets, philosophers, and great thinkers to justify his philosophy on “forgetting”.

Power of Human Memory:

The essay begins with the list of articles which are lost by the travellers at a railway station in London and the people are astonished at the absent-mindedness of their fellows. Hence Lynd comments on the working of human memory which is always a wonder even for many scientists.

Lynd continues to hold his philosophy by stating that modern man remembers the telephone numbers, the addresses of his friends, the dates of good vintages, appointments for lunch and dinner, the names of actors, actresses, cricketers, footballers, and murderers, the weather in the long past August, and the name of the provincial hotel at which he had a vile meal during the summer.

Modern man remembers almost everything that he is expected to remember. He even remembers to wear every item of clothing while dressing in the morning, and to shut the front door while leaving the house.

He then talks about the advantages of a good memory and exemplifies by stating that many great writers, poets and music composers have fantastically great memories. Despite such brilliant memories, Robert Lynd points out some important matters regarding which the memory works with less than its usual perfection. Statesmen seem to have extraordinarily bad memories and so they fail to implement the reforms made during the election campaigns.

Forgetfulness:

Modern man forgets the most common things like – consuming medicines on the advised time, posting letters in a letter box, carrying his walking sticks, books, spectacles, umbrellas and many other essential goods and commodities. Robert Lynd himself is no exception to this habit as he often forgets his walking sticks, pens, and umbrellas.

Lynd sarcastically remarks that chemists earn lot of money because of the patient’s forgetting habits of consuming the medicines. This leads to their long treatment for their illness. As a result, the patients end up buying more and more medicines.

Lynd himself has forgetfulness like other men. He remarks that any person who asks him to post a letter, is of a poor character, because he never posts his letters despite keeping it in his pocket for many days.

Young Sportsmen & Others

Robert Lynd then targets the young sportsmen, who forgets their cricket bats and footballs before travelling. He calls them the citizens of dreamland as both the defeated party and the victorious party are lost in their imaginations. In the same way, he calls the Anglers as the citizens of dreamland as they also forget to take their fishing rods when they go home in the evening because their mind is filled with matter more glorious.

Absent-mindedness:

Robert Lynd suddenly starts appreciating Absent-mindedness of this kind and calls it a virtue. Forgetfulness has its own merits as it has the capability of making a man happy and enables him to accomplish the targeted goal. The moment of forgetfulness is a moment of great joy, and such a man lives in the world of imagination. So, one can conclude that it is forgetful which makes people create something authentic, new, and genuine.

Story on Forgetfulness:  

Robert Lynd then ends his essay by narrating a very amusing story of a father, who left his baby out in a perambulator outside in the street. After discovering her sleeping baby uncared and alone, the mother of the child decided to teach her husband a lesson and to apologize for his careless act. In order to make her husband frightened, she wheeled away the perambulator, expecting her husband to be filled with terror on finding his baby lost. But in contrast to her expectations, her husband came with a smiling face and asking for the lunch having forgotten all about the baby and the fact he had taken the lunch out with him.

Conclusion:

Thus, in this essay, Lynd humorously speaks on the advantages and disadvantages of ‘forgetfulness’ and ‘human memory’.