You Won't Remember the Pandemic the Way You Think You Will

[chia]

9. It's really not overblown, the very act of recalling a memory changes it. When we recall with other

people, our memories can be synchronized or entangle with others' memories and over time we may claim those memories as ours too, without even realizing the transition. The same thing happened with people who recorded their memories of 9/11 right after that day and then years later were asked to recall their memories and compare them to what they'd written years earlier. Many of them were not only off, they were way off. Memory is tricky, and a lot more unreliable than many of us realize.

Once my son recalled a memory from a family event and I had to gently remind him he wasn't there, he hadn't even been born yet. He'd absorbed the stories of that event being told over the years and genuinely thought he was recalling his own memories.

This is why contemporaneous notes (such as during the Mueller hearings) are so important.