One of the saddest things about life is how little of it we remember. We don’t remember half of it. We don’t even remember half of half of it. To be honest, not even a tiny percentage of life is stored away in our brains. It’s sad to imagine that moments that were so precious in a past moment have been lost, disappeared into nothingness.

If you asked me to write down a list of memories from when I was six, I would really struggle. I don’t remember the name of my teacher or who my best friend was. I don’t remember what food I ate, what games I played or what books I read. And this makes me sad because if nobody – including you – remembers that you did something, I’m not sure you can say you really did it. It’s like that event never happened at all.

This is the fuel for why I obsessively journal. Every day, there’s an anxious part of me that needs to write my life down as evidence. If I don’t record something to affirm my existence right now, then who I am now might not exist in the future. The memory gives this event life.

When I was little, I watched a movie where Santa exists but will only survive if people believe he exists. If nobody believes in him, Santa disappears. The movie is focused around the last kid who believes in Santa and how desperately Santa tries to make the kid hold onto his faith.

I thought the movie was stupid then, but now I kind of get it. We are simultaneously Santa as we don’t want to be forgotten, and the kid as we don’t want to forget something precious.

Psychologists call this fear of forgetting athazagoraphobia. At the end of the day, it’s probably just vanity.

See more at if a tree falls from a forest.