Edward E. Wilson

Our memories do not exist for the purpose of record keeping. They exist for the purpose of helping us live our lives. For this reason, Fidelity is not their primary concern.

Over time they’re being abstracted into thematic, even symbolic, forms. They tell us the story of us. They form a map of how our world works.

They form a system of contextual and conditional associations we used to predict how the situations we are presently experiencing could go, so that we can select actions that will help us best navigate them. So we can best get our needs met.

This is why I forgetting is so important. The map of meaning is created by forgetting what isn’t relevant to us and what we are trying to do. Just like a collection of raw footage is not a movie until it is edited and spliced together, our raw memories are not the story of our lives more than that by which we navigate those lives until they’re edited and organized.

When we get upset and convinced our memory isn’t working right, we are often judging our memory by the wrong standard. We judge it in terms of how well it performs the task of record keeping.

Rather we could ask, how meaningful is the story of me? How useful is my map of the world? Am I creating a life of meaning? Am I improving my ability to get my needs met and live my values?

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