yes and no.

I remember everything. well, I guess it’s better to say I remembered everything.

until 2020 I remembered everything and had a near 95% recall. after I got covid and stress/anxiety ate away at my sanity it’s more like 80% now. My age is also a factor.

remembering everything, every detail, did me more harm than good honestly. all the embarrassing moments in my life from my first class recital in kindergarten where I fucked up my lines to the time a hooked up with a “dead fish”.

I’m on the other side of my life now and most the crap I remember isn’t worth it.

there are some good memories I’d like to keep, but when I do finally forget them (and I will forget them), I won’t even know I forgot anything at all.

Memories fade.

Take tons of pictures and videos now. Make sure you have storage and backups.

When I was younger I didn’t like taking pictures.

When I got older and had kids I didn’t want to spend all my times taking pictures. We were “building memories” was my excuse.

Now all I have are memories, but those will disappear when I cease to exist. I don’t like that one bit.

Honestly, going through and getting therapy and doing the work nowadays, I’m more afraid of the ones I’ll find than the ones I’ll eventually lose.

if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore

I get what you mean by this. It’s been my theory for a while that your memories are “you”, so it’s no longer “you” if you lose even half of your memories. You’re an entirely different person. Everything that we are, are contained in these memories. If you cloned a person then automatically, they will be a different person from the start. Simply because the memories they make will be different and are no longer identical. It’s why I think if someone loses their memories through diseases like Alzheimer’s or dementia, it’s no longer “them”.

Hell, every time you go to sleep, you will wake up an entirely different person. Ship of Theseus style. Your memories and even the cells in your body are slowly being replaced by new ones. So… in a way, every single second of our life, we are no longer the “me” that we were and we are now someone else.

Sounds quite simple - if you are healthy, nothing to do. If you fear losing memories - write them down. Like, a diary or journal, but you now write down what happened in the past, how you saw it, how you experience it. That way you have memories written down. You can also over time re-read them and update and double check do you still remember them the same way you used to, or do your memories get “watered down” over time.

I’m 51 and I have an astonishingly complete long term memory, I can remember parts of being 2 years old, and pretty much everything from age 4 onward. I mean not every single day in kindergarten or anything like that, but I have a pretty good grasp on what my daily life was like most of the time. I kept a friends only online blog for years, and when I’ve reread it, there’s only bits and pieces I don’t immediately remember, nothing significant, but when I read it I have good recall of what happened, it’s just not immediately on the surface of my mind.

My short term memory is sometimes iffy, it’s largely due to stress though from my violent ex, but it improves when I am feeling safer.

I think this is because I read so much.

You can get genetic testing for Alzheimers done; I lived with the Fear for many years until I got the testing done and found I didn’t have the gene… such a relief. I’m still a forgetful fuck though

Write down your favorite ones, take pictures and get them PRINTED videos future you will thank you

Everytime you access a memory you change it. Create memoirs (journals, pictures, collages) to snapshot them at a point in time.

Having this “backstory” (for lack of a better term), is what drives me forward, without those memories, like if I get a concussion and forgot everything, I wouldn’t really be… well… “me” anymore

Emotional memories is how we develop a sense of self. So if you are really attached to who you are then it will be terryfing to loose who you are.

But we can do really wacky stuff with our memories. We can delude ourselfs into makeing new false memories or misremembering them.

Also you constantly get new memories and change who you are, so you aren’t the same person as you were years ago.

I have grown up without that sense of self and I had to sculpt one from the ground up. So I am not really terrified of loosing the sens of self as I can make one once again. It will be different but it will still be ME.

Memories are not permanent, it’s not their nature.

I think memory works different for different people. I am nearly 30 and I don’t really remember much from elementary school (I mean the general experience, not the knowledge of course), nor a big part of my early life up to like 13-14 years old (but it might be connected to childhood trauma).

I am pretty good at learning new words in foreign languages and other similar stuff though.

I take it from your username you are fan of Steins;Gate. I feel somehow the thought of “fear of lose of all the merry times” quite fitting the aesthetics of Stiens;Gate, and some inherent bluesness about these things all around that corner of culture, like literally every other anime featuring highschoolers.

Aesthetically, I classify this as milking, i.e. a concept works very well and is easy to pull, so they pulled it a lot. The had my tears in Gate and Angel Beats and probably that comic with 3 boy highschoolers hanging out, but not really after those because there really isn’t much arguments in that department so you grow used to them.

Personally I don’t really give a f to it, partly because I really just don’t - not something I normally would be contemplating about if not brought up - partly probably I felt like I have already done this before.

So my opinion on this is:

• It is an idea, and some felt it. It proves its ability to cultivate strong emotional feelings, which has been milked over the years in the content industry. There is a certain net of aesthetics and culture, philosophical stuff around it. If you wish to experience that particular blues feeling for aesthtics reasons, you can pull it yourself by thinking these pretty effectively.
• there isn’t really other realistic use thinking it, all it does is making you blues. If you forgets, you would be forgetting, journalling won’t help because you be forgetting; if you don’t, you don’t have an issue then. Journalling is a good habit, this idea is pro that, so that’s good; but there’s not really anything you can do if you can’t “re-live the moments reading the journal”.

I have very similar feelings towards my memories. I’d like to tell you why and offer a solution that’s been very transformative for me – and even for those closest to me.

Writing them down is one of the best things you can do here. Maybe for yourself in general, but that’s a different rabbit hole.

I’m approaching 30 and it’s only for the past couple of years that I’ve been journalling things consistently. I started after stumbling upon a very old notebook that I used for all sorts of stuff: writing short bits of fiction, making small notes, processing my feelings, doodling, etc. Between that moment and the oldest entry passed maybe 5-6 years at the time – and I was shocked to find out how much of that I had forgotten to a point that I felt a jolt reading about them; like a memory injected into my brain, suddenly and all at once.

I can’t say every single one of them was pleasant, but over the years, each and every one of them felt valuable. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be reading about your past self from 10, 20, 30 years ago – that’s gotta be like reading about someone else entirely, but much weirder, because you know you’re the same person.

Write that down. Don’t overthink it – don’t look for systems, don’t optimize, don’t make it pretty. Just write, and in time, you’ll find the way that works for you the most.

And backup. You’re one accident away from losing years or decades worth of your life’s most dearest memories. If you write by hand, either take photos and back them up (multiple times, different mediums), or digitalize them and then do multiple backups as well. I am speaking from experience.

I’ve 0 recollection of my school years, where I was consistently bullied and harassed. If I can’t remember something it’s problably for the better.