Faking It

There is a delightful little article in a recent New Yorker, the one with the delightful cover of Dick Cheney and Heath Ledger. It's about a man who woke up one morning on the subway in New York with absolutely no recollection of who he was or how he came to be on the train. The blurb goes on to discuss how excited he is about learning new things, even about himself, that he is delightfully childlike and pure.

And then there is the suggestion that, because there is no physical evidence to understand what happened to cause this sudden and complete loss of memory, he is faking it. It made me laugh out loud. And it made me wonder, what would be so awful that it would make you want to reinvent yourself like that? Especially in that way? And it made me wonder even further, if I could start all over, blank slate and all, who would I be? Or perhaps, how would I be? Intriguing little question...