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Kindle Notes & Highlights
The human brain comes into the world with some amount of genetic hardwiring (for example, for breathing, crying, suckling, caring about faces, and having the ability to learn the details of their native language). But compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, human brains are unusually incomplete at birth.
In a sense, the process of becoming who you are is defined by carving back the possibilities that were already present. You become who you are not because of what grows in your brain, but because of what is removed.
Your neurons operate in a dynamic matrix of shifting relationships, and heavy demand is continually placed on them to wire with others. So your memory of the birthday dinner has become muddied, as those “birthday” neurons have been co-opted to participate in other memory networks.
The enemy of memory isn’t time; it’s other memories.
You don’t perceive objects as they are. You perceive them as you are.
