People Have Short Memories
“I outlived the bastards.”
“There is no such thing as forgiveness,” Rust Cohle of “True Detective” once said. “People just have short memories.”
I take a lot from Rust Cohle, including this quote about people having short memories.
As a corollary, hyperthymesia is a condition that leads people to remember an abnormal amount of detail in their life experiences. According to psychologists Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill, and James McGaugh, two characteristics of hyperthymesia include spending an excessive amount of time thinking about the past and having an extraordinary ability to recall the past.
Hyperthymesia is a medical condition for a reason. While we think having long memories can help us excel on our exams, tests, and overall benefit us in our lives, remembering everything in normal detail isn’t a very good or adaptive life mechanism.
I came to this recommendation after a comment from Erik Brown on one of my articles: he read a story about a woman who could remember everything, and it made her life a living hell. “She was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown,” Erik said.
She could remember everything as if it was yesterday. In hyperthymesia manner, the woman was able to remember every slight and harsh comment, and how she felt from it, in…
