When I was six I thought my memory was eternal and that I could not possibly forget anything as long as I tried.
It’s been decades now, and I still remember one particular incident that happened back then, although not in the way my younger self would have expected.
On that day, I had just experienced something particularly important, and wanted to make sure I would remember it for the rest of my life. I figured I would never forget the incident as long as I kept repeating it to myself every day for the rest of my life., all the way till the day I died (yes, I pondered about death when I was six, but that’s a story for another time).
In theory, it would have worked, but what I remember today is—in an amusing twist of irony, is not that incident—but rather merely the memory of telling myself to remember that particular something… with no memory of what that particular something was.
