On Memory

The mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience is something with which almost everyone is familiar. Everyone must use and rely on memory for a great many things in everyday life-- too many, in fact, to actually list. Yet despite the fact that we are so utterly dependent upon recollection, most people are really rather ill-equipped to recollect much of anything. This can become extremely annoying.

Having to repeat something over again to the same person can be tedious. It's also annoying to receive the same exact forwarded emails and text messages from the same person. How terrible can your memory possibly be? You just sent me the same message a week ago? But the lack of memory doesn't stop there. As if not remembering anything couldn't become annoying enough, everyone around me suddenly makes up memories every now and then.

False memories are so widespread that I sometimes feel like I'm the only one around who remembers what actually happened. Everyone else just seems to be making shit up. As a person that is a stickler for the truth, I get really agitated whenever I hear someone tell a story and add in elements that never occurred. If I wanted to hear exaggerated phony memories, I'd go rent Big Fish. What is the matter with everyone?

It gets even worse when I'm somehow involved in the story. Suddenly I'm being quoted on things I've never said, performing actions that I've never done, and sometimes I appear in locations where I've never set foot. When the words, actions, and locations are unflattering it makes it even worse. I'm not angered when certain embarrassing moments about me are revealed. But that is only when the said event has actually taken place. Stop putting words in my mouth, making me do things, and whisking me away to unknown places when it is all made up.

So to everyone out there, try harder to remember what actually happened. If you cannot, then please refrain from telling stories about the past. Chances are that those stories contain way too many fictional elements. And if you must tell a fictional story claiming that you remember it, please leave me out of it! I have no idea what the problem is with you people, but it seems to me like the whole world has some form of amnesia. In short, let those few people that can actually remember things be the ones to recall and relate past events. The rest of you just plain suck at it!