You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.
Our memories aren't faithful record-keepers but biased storytellers—they shape themselves to match our needs rather than facts. McCarthy suggests something grimmer than mere forgetfulness: we actively *choose* what vanishes and what persists, often without realizing it. A person might cherish a lover's kindest words while the sharp betrayals fade, or vice versa, each version of the past serving a different emotional purpose. The insight cuts because it means we're never victims of faulty recall alone; we're complicit in the narratives we carry, which makes both our self-deceptions and our resilience partially our own doing.
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason...”
Marcus Aurelius“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. I...”
Viktor Frankl“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca