“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten”
This is a quote from Cesare Pavese, an italian poet. I have always been very interested in how humans talk about the past and how they refer to it. Sometimes conflict occurs when a person disagrees with another one by remembering an important event differently. Often it is one person’s word against the other person’s word. We cannot go back in time and check how that event truly happened and therefore it is an irremediable disagreement.
Therefore, it is obvious that we cannot remember full days. We remember little extracts, conversations, how we felt, a smell, a small detail… we forget what we believe are the least relevant things, and with time, even the most relevant things begin to fade. However, this quote truly made me meditate and realize that in these memory lapses is where, in fact, our life has truly been. Maybe we remember a special moment of a day but that wasn’t our complete day. What we forget are the special details that we often take for granted and not value as something special. Our family, our friends, the weather, having the opportunity to go out for a walk… It is impossible for us as human beings to remember every moment of every day, however, we can appreciate every moment of every day. That is when we begin to value the present, and we start giving it the importance it deserves. These moments that we are definitely not going to remember with accuracy, or at all, are where the important things really are.
