Eternal Sunshine Summary In Bad Memories, Good Decisions, And The Three Joel’s by Valerie Tiberius, she explains how memories distort the past and can cause you to make impulsive decisions. She makes a reference to Eternal Sunshine of how distorting memory can affect you. “When Joel wants to have Clementine erased from his memory, he is remembering the worst of their times together, one of which is their time together.” (Tiberius 63) This statement supports her thesis of how memories can distort the past. The film also gives us the visual point of view of how it can affect you as stated in Tiberius’s essay she also points out how there are three different types of Joel’s present in the movie.
Tiberius explains how the movie shows you three different types of Joel’s, the bitter Joel, the spotless Joel, and the sadder but wiser Joel. She explains how all these Joel’s mistakes can affect their future. First Tiberius’s explains how the spotless minded Joel whose mind is clear, no worries and yet no past experiences to learn from. This can affect any relationship that could possibly happen with Clementine because they would head down the same road that they have just previously left for a reason. She states how this Joel is not wise at all and incapable of making good decisions for himself. Tiberius’s talks about the bitter Joel which is one whom is upset with Clementine and acts on impulse to have her erased from her memory because she did it, he was acting based off emotions and anger. He does not take the time to gather himself, to think of all the good memories that they have had and use it as a learning experience instead he goes to erase her from his memory. “These memories cause deep sadness and resentment” (Tiberius 65). These feelings refer to how Joel felt when he saw Clementine kissing another man in front of him as if he didn’t exist little does he know is that he has been removed from her memory. This Joel, Tiberius’s feels is wiser and has better judgment than the spotless Joel because he has had an experience and felt an emotion that he has dealt with which allows him to make decisions best for himself. Tiberius claims that the sadder but wiser Joel, whom is the one who just had his memory removed and listened to the tapes of him talking about Clementine and of what she had to say about him, is the one who is in the best state to make a better decision on the relationship if they decide to take it any further. She supports this statement by saying because Joel is not in the state of mind where he is angry and jealous to make his decision on Clementine. The author is basically saying that he is the one who can make the best decisions because its not based off impulse at all that it is based on how he feels over time.
This goes back to the author’s thesis of when she says how memories can distort the past. Memories can distort the past based on how you remember it, you can remember the best stuff that have ever happened to you and make decisions based off of that thinking that you would be put in the same situation again. You can also make decisions based off your worst experiences, which can prevent you from doing stuff because you already have a feeling of what is going to happen. These are the memories that we use to make decisions that can affect us in life, these are based on our past though and we use that to make better judgments.

Works Cited
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Dir. Michael Gondry. Perf. Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, and Tom Wilkinson. Focus Features, 2004. Film.
Tiberius, Valerie. “Bad Memories, Good Decisions, and the Three Joels.” Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. Ed. Christopher Grau. New Yor