Gettysburg Address: Hope, Despair And Memory

Memory
In the “Gettysburg Address” and the lecture “Hope, Despair and Memory” the topic of memory is touched upon. Memory is an essential part of our existence, but is all of it necessary? While it is true that, “Without memory, our existence would be barren and opaque,”(from “Hope, Despair and Memory”) do all memories provide enough benefit to us to warrant their existence? If you could erase some of your most difficult memories, would you do it? While I do see value in some painful memories, for they often teach a lesson, not all painful memories can help you, especially traumatic ones, therefore I would opt to erase traumatic memories for they do more harm than good.
To begin my case for why I would erase some memories, let me start with a very simple example;
When asked the question about memories, his opinion was to not erase memories. He said “It depends if you are a pessimist or an optimist. Because I am an optimist, although my difficult memories are painful, I can say that I have learned from them. When I go through something difficult I can compare (it) to the most difficult memories and tell myself this is nothing compared to my most difficult memory. I can use it to bolster myself. The memories can, but not always, provide me with hope. Forgetting one difficult memory makes the other memories incomplete. Life is chronological. Taking out a memory doesn’t tell your complete story.” To start, let me address his opening remarks, “It depends if you are a pessimist or an optimist,” well, not exactly. Take for example an optimistic person who is drugged and raped. Do you think they will think of it in a positive way afterwards? I do agree however with his statement “The memories can but not always, provide me with hope.” This is true for quite possibly everyone, just as said in “Hope, Despair and Memory”, “The source of his hope was memory, as it must be