To my mind, forgetting is a risky strategy for living. Memory is essential to us. It is DNA. We need to remember, and we need to imagine. That's why we have books, writing, fiction.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't think forgetting is an important feature of human memory. I think it's important to be able to remember things accurately.
When you forget everything, there only remains yourself - and that is not enough.
The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.
This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest.
The problem of forgetting might not torment us so much if we could only convince ourselves that remembering isn't important. Perhaps the things we learn - words, dates, formulas, historical and biographical details - don't really matter. Facts can be looked up. That's what the Internet is for.
Memory is the thing you forget with.
Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!
Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.
It's so necessary to try and record the cultural memory of people. To set it down for generations to come. To better understand where we are headed. The problem is, a good portion of what we choose to remember is about willed forgetting. Which we all do, I believe, to protect ourselves from what is too difficult.
Memory is a way of telling you what's important to you.
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