[Cd00d]

I had near-photographic memory through my adolescence. I had a bad mountain biking accident with a brain injury that took that and much of my short term memory function away (the short-term part has largely improved in the following decades).

I see the downsides. Before my accident I had a backlog of resentment events that I revisited internally very frequently. It may be the change in memory or my own maturity and change of perspective with age, but I can no longer remember those things that I held on to and resented so deeply, and I'm grateful for that. I think I still remember the real traumas, but a lot of what I forgot was just piddly stuff where I was lacking empathy for the other side's predicament.

I did have a hard time re-learning how to learn. I lost my stellar memory function in the summer between high school and college, and had never learned to study - I just reflected on what had already been presented instead. I had a very hard time figuring out how to study, and had a thing against taking notes (I felt it was better to be engaged with the lecture than trying to re-read it later). I started taking notes in graduate school because I couldn't keep up with many lectures and needed a way to walk through what had happened later.

I now takes notes obsessively. I keep a paper notebook at hand 100% of the time I'm working and every thought or follow up goes into it. I've developed a shorthand that makes this work seamlessly. Funny enough, I now distrust people that aren't taking notes when we're discussing importing things lol.

That said, I do miss the days of massive recall.