I've been doing a lot of research/reading about the human brain as of late. In particular how memories affect our day to day life. Memories are a fundamental building block to the person we are today. They affect our everyday decisions and play an instrumental role in character development.
The problem with memories is that they are increasingly subject to change the older we get and the more we access them. Every time we access a particular memory it inevitably changes to some extent. The changes could be small like the color of a shirt that somebody was wearing, or they could be large like entire conversations or meetings that never took place.
Emotions also play a huge part in the development and retaining of memories. Contrary to what most people probably think, when our emotions are strong our memories are most vulnerable. People have been conditioned to think that when a dramatic event takes place in their life, they remember every little detail about it. This actually couldn't be further from the truth, because when emotions are running high, the brain uses most of its energy to support these emotions. I mean sure you'll remember the core stuff like the event, result and location, but pretty much everything else will be misremembered.
Essentially what I'm getting at here is that we're all living dynamic lies. The people who we think we are and the occurrences that took place in our lives are figments of our imagination.
Curious on others thoughts? -- Thanks for listening
