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At first glance having an eidetic memory sounds really cool. It’s certainly helpful when you are in need of some abstract fact. However, there is a down side to having a photographic memory, a down side that Spencer Reid was well aware of.
Not that having an eidetic memory was all bad. There were certain advantages to being able to recall anything at a drop of a hat. Along with his intelligence, it was part of what made him such a valuable resource. Sure it had its drawbacks. Remembering every book he ever read word for word, meant that he could never experience anew the thrill of discovery. Not to mention the fact, that Reid sometimes felt more like a convenient encyclopedia than a profiler. Yet more than that, he could never escape the realization that memory and consequence were irrevocably linked.
Memory and consequence almost seem to have a symbiotic relationship. Without a memory of an event, did it occur? It is those events that have the biggest emotional impact on us that we remember clearest. While the events we remember the clearest affect us the most. Circular logic, perhaps, but there is no denying the connection exists.
Every day, you make a million minor decisions. What to wear? When to get up? What to eat? The list goes on and on. However, for the most part these decisions appear to play little part in the rest of your life. While choosing the right outfit might be important to some, how many will remember that choice years down the road? Granted some decisions, though minor, do turn out have a bigger impact than one might expect. In the end, people have a tendency to put less thought or worry into decisions that they think will have little impact.
But things were different for Spencer Reid. With an eidetic memory, every memory was given the same weight. Every little detail categorized and recalled at a moment’s instance.
Which brings us back to consequences. If you could recall every detail of your life at any age until the day you die, would you be quite as free in your actions? Everything you say or do, will be stored in your mind to be considered and looked at from different angles. Decisions scrutinized and second guessed. Everything. Minor decisions soundly seem a lot more important, don’t they?