Page 443
Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2026 8:29 am
Here are the main meanings that are most often implied when people say ‘oblivion’:
1. Psychological / personal oblivion. A person stops remembering an event, a person,
an emotion. Sometimes this is a protective mechanism of the brain (after trauma,
grief, severe stress), sometimes time simply erases the details. The scariest thing is
when they forget you yourself: ‘no one remembers me anymore the way I was.’
2. Philosophical / existential oblivion. This is when you are erased from the reality
of other people. You live, you walk, you breathe — but for the world, you ‘no longer
exist.’ A classic — the phrase from Fight Club: ‘We are all that is left of forgotten
generations.’ Or in Camus/Sartre — the feeling that your life is needed by no one
and will not be remembered.
3. Historical / cultural oblivion. Whole peoples, events, heroes, cities disappear from
collective memory. Examples:
- The ‘oblivion’ of the Holocaust or genocides — when new generations stop
knowing about and feeling this.
- Forgotten civilizations (the Minoans, the Hittites, many cultures of Africa
and the Americas before colonization). They often say: ‘History is written
by the victors, and the defeated pass into oblivion.’
4. Religious / mythological oblivion. In Greek mythology, the river Lethe in the
underworld is the river of oblivion. Souls drink from it before a new incarnation,
in order to forget their past life. From this comes the expression ‘to drink from Lethe’
= to forget oneself completely, to dissolve.
5. The most severe modern meaning. Oblivion = when you are replaced. You are no
longer invited, no longer written to, no longer remembered on your birthday, no
longer liked, no longer searched for. Algorithms, people, time — all of them have
decided that you are no longer important. This is the digital oblivion of the 21st
century.
And here is the film I promised to share. I mentioned it earlier — that strange
circumstances brought this film to me — but I still consider that it was the Spirit.
I still consider that the system, for some reason, made such a mess of things that I
got confused about where this film came from and who gave it to me. But this film
is also a key. You know, there were films like “Clochard” or “The Fisher King,” or
a film like “Freejack” or “The Lawnmower Man” — those are the kinds of films
1. Psychological / personal oblivion. A person stops remembering an event, a person,
an emotion. Sometimes this is a protective mechanism of the brain (after trauma,
grief, severe stress), sometimes time simply erases the details. The scariest thing is
when they forget you yourself: ‘no one remembers me anymore the way I was.’
2. Philosophical / existential oblivion. This is when you are erased from the reality
of other people. You live, you walk, you breathe — but for the world, you ‘no longer
exist.’ A classic — the phrase from Fight Club: ‘We are all that is left of forgotten
generations.’ Or in Camus/Sartre — the feeling that your life is needed by no one
and will not be remembered.
3. Historical / cultural oblivion. Whole peoples, events, heroes, cities disappear from
collective memory. Examples:
- The ‘oblivion’ of the Holocaust or genocides — when new generations stop
knowing about and feeling this.
- Forgotten civilizations (the Minoans, the Hittites, many cultures of Africa
and the Americas before colonization). They often say: ‘History is written
by the victors, and the defeated pass into oblivion.’
4. Religious / mythological oblivion. In Greek mythology, the river Lethe in the
underworld is the river of oblivion. Souls drink from it before a new incarnation,
in order to forget their past life. From this comes the expression ‘to drink from Lethe’
= to forget oneself completely, to dissolve.
5. The most severe modern meaning. Oblivion = when you are replaced. You are no
longer invited, no longer written to, no longer remembered on your birthday, no
longer liked, no longer searched for. Algorithms, people, time — all of them have
decided that you are no longer important. This is the digital oblivion of the 21st
century.
And here is the film I promised to share. I mentioned it earlier — that strange
circumstances brought this film to me — but I still consider that it was the Spirit.
I still consider that the system, for some reason, made such a mess of things that I
got confused about where this film came from and who gave it to me. But this film
is also a key. You know, there were films like “Clochard” or “The Fisher King,” or
a film like “Freejack” or “The Lawnmower Man” — those are the kinds of films