Very good movie; I have lost a lot of my bias against Jim Carrey because of this movie. The acting by Carrey as Joel and Kate Winslet as Clementine, the camera work was superb, the writing magnificent... all in all, a very powerful movie.

The trick is, it was so powerful, it hit this chord in me, and I don't know if that's good or bad.

The movie was named after a verse from an Alexander Pope poem, "Eloisa to Abelard":

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

How it would feel to forget... how to have only the happy, the joyful. The sadness of it all is the way the movie shows how deeply intertwined the good is with the bad, and it is what we bring of ourselves to the table that determines so much.

I have to be brutally honest with myself -- there was something about that movie that drew me to it, and all during the film, and even after, I couldn't help but identify with Joel, the character played by Jim Carrey. He is bookish, introverted, quiet. He's reserved from the world, expressing himself in his own ways, in his own time.

Despite all that, he was looking to get out of his life. He was looking for something, and even when he found it, he wasn't satisfied. The human condition? Perhaps. But truthfully, he was someone looking to be shown a new world.

Deep down, there is something in me that is broken in that way. There is something about me that wants to be saved, or shown the light, or guided somewhere. There is something in my soul that feels lost and is grasping to find something. What it is, I don't know.

We take away our own meaning from good art, while also taking away something from the artist. What am I supposed to be taking away when I'm not even sure what I'm bringing to the table?

restlessmind