Photography - good or bad?

I recently read a friend's blog on the different interpretations on photography and it got me thinking. A reverend commented that "photography is not a good thing to do". He associated photography with memory.

Quote

"A good mind is a mind that works like a sieve, it is able to retain the things it needed and sieve away the ones it does not need. More importantly, a good mind - is one that is able to remember what it wants to remember and forget what it wants to forget. A photographic memory is not exactly that good to have as many old people suffer at their ending days because of their 'good' memory."

To be honest, I haven't really thought much about the meaning that can be attached to such a simple word - photography. I mainly think of photography as capturing a moment in time. Sort of like giving voice to a memory? The 'voice' being a picture. After all, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Not all of us are blessed with a good mind - to be able to keep the good and forget the bad. I believe many people suffer from 'tunnel vision'. They tend to only focus on one thing and forget everything else at different points of their lives. And slowly, due to neglect, the memory will fade away, be they good or bad.

So is it true that having a photographic memory a bad thing, especially when we're old and gray? I think there is no life without both the good and the bad. You can't have one without the other. Also, everytime we get through a hurdle, we grow wiser. So I have to disagree with the reverend here. I think it is important to remember the bad so that we would be able to appreciate the good. After all, would you really want a monotonous uneventful life? Would you really want to have a life like this _________ (a straight line)?

Not me, I'd prefer to learn from my mistakes and have a colourful life filled with memories that can bring tears to my eyes be they happy or sad.