When I think back on my life, I tend to selectively only pick out the highest and lowest points. If necessary, I even have to exaggerate whatever happened in order to make it feel more relevant. It's all just an attempt to overlook the fact that the majority of my life is spent in the large gray space in between one extreme and the other. We don't commit the mundane to memory, I guess precisely because it makes up something like easily 85% of all experience. And I can deal with that, even if it means my future self won't have the greatest time reminiscing.
I read something in my wife's journal about something I did just last year that I honestly have no memory of; at least when I read it I didn't remember it. Now that some time has gone by, I do seem to remember it. But I wonder what everyone else remembers about me that I forgot immediately. It's a horrible thought that I don't want to follow for very long because all I can focus on are the things I wish I had forgotten. I could believe I've done amazing things, but the truth is I know most of it's all been somewhere in the middle. Unremarkable.
And I don't think that makes me special in any regard, either. Most of all human activity is in this category. I just can't come up with any reason why every single thing we do shouldn't be extraordinary.
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