Jordan B Peterson on The Purpose of Memory:
“People think that the purpose of memory is to remember the past. That’s not the purpose of memory.
The purpose of memory is to extract out, from the past, lessons to structure the future. That’s the purpose of personal memory. So, you’re done with a memory when you’ve extracted the information that you can use to guide yourself properly in the future.
If you have a traumatic memory, for example, that’s obsessing you, if you analyze that memory to the point where you figured out how you put yourself at risk. You can determine how you might avoid that in the future, and then the emotion associated with that goes away.”
My take:
I don’t think his hypothesis applies entirely…… In the case of happy, positive, loving memories, they are to be retained and enjoyed indefinitely and memories of God’s blessings and provision are to be remembered and shared with our children and other believers for God’s glory and to bring others into relationship with Him.