Memory Archive

I’ve realized time and time again that my memory works in a somewhat weird way. It’s been pointed out recently that I don’t seem to remember, for example, the story beats of stories that I really love. It makes me question whether I didn’t understand the story or whether I really rate things by how I feel in the moment. Luckily, I assume this is just a quirk with how my brain operates, as at least I can retain people’s names quickly or certain Japanese vocabulary.

I think the key difference is that I’m someone who needs to be actively using the information. Otherwise, I’m left with some sort of vague fragment of how I felt in the moment. So with anime, I gravitate towards remembering the high highs and the low lows rather than the stuff in between. I feel somewhat frustrated when I can’t properly explain to others why I love the stuff I enjoy. It always seems to be like “oh, this just aligns with me”, or “it’s really good”.

Perhaps the skill I need to work on is being able to express my feelings in a more concise way. Oddly enough, I don’t “feel” like I have trouble expressing my ideas and thoughts, yet my memory doesn’t immediately pull up the details until I get reminded by some external source.

One thing I’ve been wondering is how much I should archive my thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc. For example, writing out these notes seems to be a really good practice in getting my thoughts out on the Internet or really in a somewhat more tangible form outside of my head. While it gives me some solace in seeing just how much of my ideas seem to connect or reoccur, I sit here thinking if I am either wasting my time or if I am not investing enough time.

On one hand, most of these notes are one-shot writing sprints of me pouring my thoughts into text, meaning there’s very little revision and my ideas might not be very well researched or insightful. On the other hand, if I spent too much time documenting every single moment, I feel it would be simply too much pointless information. The balance seems to be, at this point in time, that most of who I am should be expressed through the subtle impressions I leave on the world and the people around me, rather than just through what I record. While I won’t argue against archiving every single thing, I feel it can get excessive when you realize just how temporary everything is. After a span of say 100 years, will anyone really care what you had for dinner last night?

Then again, I probably undervalue how interesting it would be to see a full virtual reality experience of how my parents or ancestors lived their lives. Reminds me of the Animus system from Assassin’s Creed or the Braindance from Cyberpunk 2077 where you can emulate the experience of something in the past. It’s genuinely cool to see what happened in the past and use that information to learn what can be done in the future.

However, even though I think there are key parts that could be notable to me, at the end of the day they lived their lives and now I am living mine. So in that sense, I simply would like to remember what I felt or where I was as a person during key points in my life. What actually mattered to me rather than just having a textbook of all the happenings that occurred. Perhaps my descendants could learn a thing or two from these notes, but I would rather my actions and creations make a positive difference in their lives than simply be remembered for them.

While I may forget how things occurred or how I felt during each moment in my life, what matters more to me is the good my existence brings to the people and world around me. If some of that good continues to be felt long after I’m gone, even without anyone knowing where it came from, all the better.