I remember Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare’s wife.
I don’t remember what my mother said to me three days before she died.
The conversation happened. I was there. She said something important—I remember knowing it was important at the time. But the actual words? Gone.
Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway sits permanently filed in my brain, taking up space that should hold something that actually mattered.
The brain operates like a drunk librarian—filing random trivia in permanent collections while misplacing life-changing wisdom.
I can recite jingles from childhood commercials. “Coca-Cola, Coke is it!” Still there, forty years later, occupying neural real estate.
But my father’s financial advice? The thing he tried teaching me for years? Vague impressions, nothing concrete.
Happy notices this pattern. “You remember every cricket statistic from the 90s but forget our anniversary.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
I couldn’t explain. But it was different. Cricket stats were clean information—neutral, safe, emotionally empty. Our anniversary carried weight, expectation, potential disappointment.
Random facts arrive without baggage. Shakespeare’s marriage doesn’t challenge my worldview or demand behavioral change. It’s comfortable irrelevance.
Important lessons come wrapped in pain, failure, vulnerability. Hot knowledge that burns entering consciousness. The mind protects itself by dimming these memories.
Wisdom hurts. Trivia entertains.
Last week, Arash asked about my mother. “What was Nani like?”
I told him surface things—she cooked well, loved gardening, was kind to neighbors. The safe memories.
But her actual wisdom? The things she tried teaching me about patience, about marriage, about raising children? Scattered fragments, nothing coherent.
“What did she say to you before she died?” Arash asked.
“I don’t remember exactly.”
His face showed confusion. How do you forget something like that?
I didn’t know how to explain that the brain does this—files pain in locked drawers while keeping Pepsi slogans readily accessible.
That night I tried forcing myself to remember. Sat quietly, closed my eyes, went back to that hospital room.
I could see her face. Remember the machines beeping. The smell of antiseptic. But her words? Nothing.
Just the feeling that what she said mattered. The memory of knowing it was important. But not the actual content.
“Maybe you wrote it down?” Happy suggested.
I hadn’t. Why would I? I thought I’d remember. Important things stick, right?
Wrong. Important things are precisely what we forget—because they hurt, because they demand something from us, because remembering means confronting what we’ve lost.
Meanwhile, I can tell you the Pythagorean theorem. Can name all the Mughal emperors. Can recite the periodic table’s first twenty elements.
Useless information, permanently stored.
My colleague Karim mentioned this phenomenon. “I remember my teacher’s names from thirty years ago but forget what my wife told me this morning.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because teachers were emotionally neutral. My wife’s actually telling me important things that require response, action, change. Easier to forget.”
The brain evolved for pattern recognition in physical environments—which plants were poisonous, which paths led home. Survival information.
Modern life floods this system with meaningless patterns—celebrity gossip, brand names, sports statistics. They trigger the same storage mechanisms designed for keeping us alive.
Educational system exploits this. Students memorize dates, formulas, classifications. Random facts simulating learning without requiring understanding.
We graduate clutching mental collections of disconnected information while lacking wisdom about relationships, mortality, purpose.
I passed exams by memorizing. Got good grades. Forgot everything within months.
But emotional lessons—the ones that could have actually helped—those I avoided learning entirely. Too painful, too vulnerable, too real.
“What do you actually remember from school?” Happy asked.
“Facts. Dates. Formulas I’ll never use.”
“What did you learn about being human?”
“Nothing. That wasn’t in the curriculum.”
The internet amplifies this problem. Search engines make facts instantly accessible. No need to remember capital cities or chemical formulas—just Google it.
But this creates space for more trivia rather than more wisdom. We outsource important memory to devices while cluttering consciousness with digital debris.
I scroll social media absorbing random information—celebrity news, viral videos, political scandals. None of it matters. All of it sticks.
Meanwhile, the lesson Amma tried teaching about patience? The one Abba repeated about financial planning? The thing Happy said last week about our relationship? All fuzzy, all uncertain, all half-forgotten.
“You need to practice intentional remembering,” Happy said. “Actually work to hold onto important things.”
“How?”
“Write them down. Repeat them. Create rituals around wisdom acquisition.”
The ancient Greeks understood this. Profound truths required initiation, ceremony, emotional engagement. Made learning stick by making it significant.
Modern education makes nothing significant. Just facts to memorize, tests to pass, grades to achieve.
We learn everything and nothing simultaneously.
That evening, I started writing. Things I wanted to remember about Amma—not just that she existed, but what she taught me.
It was harder than expected. The surface memories came easy. The depth? That required work.
I wrote about conversations, reconstructed advice, forced myself to sit with uncomfortable wisdom she’d tried sharing.
Most of it was still gone. But fragments remained. And writing them down made them realer, more permanent, less likely to disappear entirely.
“What are you writing?” Arash asked.
“Things Nani tried teaching me. Before I forget completely.”
“Can I read it?”
“When you’re older. Some of it’s about being a husband, a father. You’ll understand it better then.”
“Will you remember to show me?”
Good question. Would I remember this intention? Or would it join the pile of forgotten wisdom, replaced by more trivia?
I created a reminder. Wrote it in multiple places. Made it unavoidable.
Because Arash deserved better than I got—deserved the wisdom I’d let slip away.
Started doing this with other important things too. After meaningful conversations with Happy, I’d write down key points. When Abba shared advice, I’d record it immediately.
Felt artificial at first. Like I was documenting life instead of living it.
But better than forgetting. Better than clutching Anne Hathaway while losing Amma.
“You’re becoming obsessive about this,” Happy observed.
“Maybe. But I’ve lost too much already.”
She understood. We’d both lost parents, lost conversations, lost wisdom we couldn’t recover.
The mind hoards meaningless data while discarding transformative insights. We remember jingles and forget prayers. Retain statistics and lose philosophy.
But maybe we can fight this. Practice intentional remembering. Create space for wisdom by releasing trivia.
Tonight I tried intentional forgetting—clearing mental space by actively letting go of useless facts. Who was Shakespeare’s wife? Don’t care. What’s the capital of Mongolia? Irrelevant.
Making room for what actually matters.
It’s a practice, not a solution. The drunk librarian still runs my brain, still files things chaotically.
But now I’m working with them. Requesting specific storage. Demanding certain memories stay accessible.
Will it work? Don’t know. But trying is better than surrendering to whatever random algorithm decides what I remember.
Arash asked tonight, “Baba, what’s the most important thing Nani taught you?”
I had to think. Really think. Then: “That presence matters more than perfection. That being there is enough.”
“Did you learn it?”
“I’m learning it. Still.”
He nodded. Satisfied with honest answer.
Later, Happy asked, “Did Amma actually say that? About presence?”
“I think so. Maybe. It’s what I remember now.”
“Close enough.”
Maybe that’s all we can do—reconstruct wisdom from fragments, honor teachers by practicing lessons even when we can’t recall exact words.
Remember what matters, even if we don’t remember precisely.
Let Anne Hathaway fade. Hold onto Amma.
Forget trivia. Remember love.