“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
I recently came across this quote at a bookstore, and it took my breath away. I’ve long felt this way about books but never knew how to articulate it.
And this quote applies to so much of our lives.
Our memories are poor records of our actual experiences. In addition to books and meals, all of the conversations, performances, art, problems and so on that I have experienced in my life have shaped me though I can recall only a fraction of them.
Neuroscientists can speak better about memory and the inner workings of the brain. The way I see it, our memories were never meant to all be recallable because where would the mystery of life be? I feel like our creativity would be stunted if our brains were consumed with all of our memories. The wonder of life lies in the energy between memories.
