Memory - is not a thing

Memory creates our identity,

But it also exposes the illusion of a coherent self:

a memory is not a thing

but an act that alters and rearranges even as it retrieves.

Although some of its operations can be trained to an astonishing pitch, most take place autonomously, beyond the reach of the conscious mind.

As we age, it distorts and foreshortens: present experience becomes harder to impress on the mind,  remembering what you came downstairs for gets harder.

Don't you find?

Sometimes recalling a name can feel like you are pulling at a heavy chain that is securely anchored to the sea bed. It is as if memory with its stubborn drollery will deny you access to its inscrutable treasure trove,

If you then forego your panic and frustration and you
 if you stop trying to recall, and if you are of that mind, you enter into a Buddhist type state
of detachment and serenity. Which seems a tad better, than fuming, 'why the fuck can't I remember that person's name?'

 Source http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n10/mike-jay/argument-with-myself  Mike Jay

• BuyPermanent Present Tense: The Man with No Memory, and What He Taught the World by Suzanne Corkin
  Allen Lane, 346 pp,   £20.00, May, ISBN 978 1 84614 271 0