I wonder if I have passed the point in my life where I have forgotten more than I remember or will remember at any point in the future?
I seem to function quite reliably as a fount of useless knowledge with all sorts of facts and figures packed away in my head. However, I am pretty sure that I don’t have all the things I once did at the front of my mind. For example, I used to be up to speed on searching XML files with XPath because I used it a lot… over ten years ago. I would definitely have to do some research if I found I needed it again. Or, if I talk to someone I shared past experiences with, sometimes they recall an event which either draws a complete blank or for which I can only summon up a pale resonance. And, of course, there are those thousands of times when I’ve shut and locked the front door – overlaid so I sometimes need to double check that I am remembering doing that just now but merged together into impressions rather than distinct historical moments with dates and times attached.
I don’t think I am becoming unusually forgetful and I recognise that it is hard to put a number on how much ‘memory’ I have stored away but I wonder if I have passed that point? All this musing prompted by the phrase “he’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know” (or something like that – I don’t quite remember) which popped into my head when heading back from a meeting earlier today.