Mastering Forgetting
One of my biggest sources of anxiety is forgetting things. It’s why I carry my bullet journal around the house. I write down everything. Everything. From things I need to do to quotes from books to memories from childhood (that must have come into my mind for some important reason).
Recent entries: A quote from A Case for Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro, a statement about how much I love it when Linus’s ears flicker while he sleeps, a reminder to check the miles on my car, and a single word: colophon.
I’m so scared that if I don’t take a moment to write something down that I’ll spend double that time feeling bothered that I’m forgetting something. So I take minutes out of my day to jot down the name of a resort in the Maldives (Soneva Jani), a phrase I heard in a Downton Abbey episode (“All Sir Garnet”), and create a reminder to purchase a gift for a friend.
It makes me feel like everything is neatly in place inside my mind.
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The New York Times points out that there are many brain training options out there for remembering things — from chunking to memory palaces — but few active methods for trying to forget things. Mitigate the stress thinking about an event makes us feel — absolutely. But actively forgetting that said event ever happened — not so much.
The New York Times writes, “To intentionally forget is to remember differently, on purpose. Importantly, for scientists and therapists, intentional forgetting also may be an ability that can be practiced and deliberately strengthened.” They explain the forgetting strategies along with forgetting benefits.
I sat with the article for a while because forgetting brings me so much anxiety; even forgetting unpleasant things. I’m fascinated by memory exercises and party tricks like remembering the first 100 digits of pi, and I never thought about how we don’t have corresponding exercises for forgetting. Forgetting is just something that happens, something we need to fight against. Except that sometimes we remember things we don’t really want to remember.
Food for thought.
3 comments
Interesting, I would like to intentionally forget a few things.
I am pretty good at forgetting things, and you know what? My world doesn’t end when that happens. 🙂
(Actually, forgetting has occasionally been a strong character trait – my friends were always willing to vent to me about other people because they knew I would often forget completely about it by the next time they talked to me.)
I am also good at remembering inconsequential trivia. But not what someone last night asked me to do today.
Forgetting is passive, while remembering is active. To me, anyway. So it seems weird to MAKE forgetting happen. I feel like it’s something I let happen.