A friend brought up an embarrassing moment from elementary school.
First day of class, the teacher had everyone sing to break the ice. After one kid finished, I whispered to the person next to me: “He was off-key.”
Apparently, I then got peer-pressured into singing too.
Here’s the thing: I have zero memory of singing. My recollection stops right at the moment I judged someone else for being off-key.
Why did I forget? Probably because I sang even worse, and it was awkward—nowhere near as good as that “little singer” classmate. Memory is such a flatterer. It quietly erases the parts where I might have embarrassed myself, leaving only the moment I was critiquing others.
This hit me. I started wondering: all those things I remember so vividly—have they been quietly “edited” by my own brain too?