Memory

Nothing could be more fickle than memory. I’ve often found myself wondering how reliable my own memories are, not just in terms of accuracy, but in what they choose to remember at all. Because if I’m being honest, I don’t think I remember things as they were. I remember things as I experienced them. My memory is a curated museum of moments that mattered to me; moments that resonated with how I felt, what I wanted, or what I feared at that time.

The same instance in time; the same evening, conversation, or event; could be remembered in a completely different way by someone else who was there. They might recall words I’ve forgotten, emotions I didn’t perceive, silences I didn’t register. And the strange thing is, we’d both be right. That’s what fascinates me, this idea that memory doesn’t record events, it interprets them. It’s not a camera. It’s more like an artist sketching impressions on paper, drawing the parts that stood out, omitting the background, exaggerating a few strokes for effect. Over time, the sketch becomes the truth we hold onto. It’s why family members can argue about what exactly happened during a particular incident; say, a wedding day or a childhood holiday. Each remembers their version vividly, with confidence, with emotional certainty. “No, that’s not what happened,” someone will say. And yet, both stories could be true, all from their own points of view.

We like to believe truth is singular, that there’s one accurate version of events waiting to be verified. But lived truth rarely behaves that way. It fragments, filters, bends to emotion and context. Think of how differently we perceive moments of conflict. A heated argument, for instance. One person might remember it as a betrayal. Another might recall it as an act of desperation. The words exchanged may be the same, but their meaning shifts entirely depending on who’s remembering. So perhaps truth is not a fixed coordinate but a spectrum of perspectives; each one shaped by where you stood, what you felt, and what mattered most to you in that instant. Over time, I’ve learned to listen differently when people tell their stories. Especially those that sound improbable or one-sided. Because maybe they are true,  just not in the way I first assumed. And that brings me to something I’ve often wondered: could myths be the same? What if myths aren’t “false stories” as we tend to dismiss them, but rather deep memories; remembered through generations, refracted through countless perspectives, filtered by time and retelling? Take any ancient myth — from Greek legends to Indian epics. Each one began as a lived experience, witnessed by someone, interpreted through their own emotional lens. Over centuries, that experience would have been retold, each time slightly altered by the storyteller’s imagination and understanding. Over time, the original event may have faded, leaving only the essence; a symbolic truth, wrapped in metaphor, carried forward as story. Maybe the story of Icarus flying too close to the sun wasn’t meant as literal flight, but as memory transmuted into meaning, a recollection of human overreach, or the first experiment that went too far. Maybe the Mahabharata isn’t just a mythic war, but a memory of conflict magnified through the lens of moral and spiritual struggle. If memory itself is a selective storyteller, what happens when it passes through generations? Perhaps myth is collective memory; humanity’s way of remembering what it once felt, rather than what it once saw.

I see shades of this in my own life. Sometimes, when I recount a story from my childhood, I realise I’m no longer telling what happened, I’m telling what it meant to me. The factual details may be blurred, but the emotional truth feels intact. I once told someone about a teacher who made me feel invisible in class. Later, when I reconnected with an old classmate, he remembered that same teacher as kind and attentive. It unsettled me at first, how could we have such different recollections? But then I realised: both versions were true, because both were filtered through our experience of being seen. My memory wasn’t lying. It was simply loyal to my perspective.  In that sense, I think we’re all myth-makers. We remember selectively, we retell instinctively, we add the drama, the emotion, the interpretation that makes sense to us. Over time, those stories crystallise into personal truths, not falsehoods, but versions of meaning.

I wonder what this means for history itself. The histories we read: of nations, wars, revolutions; are all built on selected memories, recorded and curated through lenses of power, culture, and hindsight. What we call “recorded fact” is often just “accepted perspective.” Someone else’s version may have been lost, dismissed, or overwritten. And so, when we look at ancient myths, maybe we shouldn’t see them as primitive attempts at explanation. Maybe they’re the earliest versions of remembering; an oral record of how a people once felt about the world, the forces that shaped them, the mysteries they couldn’t fully explain. In that light, myths may not be false at all. They may simply be emotionally true.

We all have an irresistible urge to turn experience into narrative. It’s how we make sense of chaos. Every time we recall something, we’re not just retrieving a file, we’re reconstructing it, reinterpreting it through who we are today. That’s why an old memory feels different when revisited after years. You don’t just remember what happened; you remember the person you were when it happened. The story evolves because you have evolved. And this, perhaps, is the quiet beauty of memory’s fickleness. It keeps truth alive, not as a static fact, but as a living conversation between past and present. When I think of myths again through this lens, they start to feel less like fiction and more like collective dreams; each one carrying a kernel of truth, seen through a thousand shifting eyes. Maybe the story of the flood in so many cultures (I could give you exact quotes from multiple scripture) wasn’t a coincidence — maybe it was a shared memory of an event, remembered differently by different people. Maybe gods and demons were early attempts to name forces we still struggle to understand; ambition, fear, love, chaos, nature’s fury. Every myth might just be memory retold at scale, transformed from “what happened” into “what mattered.” There’s a certain comfort in this realisation. That our memories don’t have to be perfectly accurate to be true. That truth itself can hold multiple faces, each valid from where it’s seen. It makes me more patient when I disagree with someone’s version of the past. Instead of arguing whose recollection is correct, I try to ask myself; what did it mean to them? What emotion anchors their story? What truth are they holding onto that I can’t see from my side? Because maybe, at the end of the day, truth is not about agreement. It’s about understanding.

If memory is fickle, then maybe that’s a gift, not a flaw. It allows us to carry our experiences not as fixed monuments, but as living stories. Stories that shift with perspective, grow with empathy, and deepen with reflection. And if myths are born from such memories, then perhaps they’re not falsehoods at all. They’re humanity’s long echo — our way of saying, this is how it felt to be alive, to wonder, to struggle, to hope. So when I hear an old story now; whether it’s from scripture, folklore, or a friend’s nostalgic recollection. I try not to ask, “Did it really happen?” I ask instead, “What is the universe asking me to remember?”

C