Forgetfulness = Happiness

At some point one must become OK with not knowing everything.  In fact, one must become OK with the idea that much of what they come to know, they will eventually forget. Sounds like a silly statement, probably, but it was something that popped in to my head this weekend while at the Brewer's cabin.  I was sitting on the patio about 9:15am and trying to soak up the silence and enjoy the nature before heading back to dirty, smokey, mucky, grimy, sticky, hot Fresno, when I started pondering silly questions. The Question(s) I noticed these two trees (don't ask me what kind--I don't know a cedar from a fir from you name it, unless it comes to fruit) and how perfectly straight they seemed, but yet they weren't perfectly perpendicular to the ground.  If they were so straight, what made them get like that?  Why is it, again, that trees grow in different directions?  ...and then how do some end up so straight like these two?  That, of course, led to other silly questions... I know somebody knows the answer to that question about the trees, but why don't I know it?  Maybe somebody told me why trees might grow like that, but I guess I probably just forgot. So why do I forget?  Why can't I know all of the stuff I was once told?  Why couldn't I remember why trees grow the way they grow? My (Completely Unfounded) Answer It's too much for my brain.  As a kid, I learned things, then for some reason, my brain dismissed them.  So... at some point in my life, I must've realized that I can't remember everything I read or heard or saw...  I must've then decided that it's just OK to never know it all and that I'll continue to forget all kinds of things for the rest of my life. But why?  Why is it OK that I forget? Because that's how it is.  No choice in that matter. My Refreshing Conclusion (well, at least to me) While all of that may sound like a downer or even a "who cares", I think it might point to the opposite.  Maybe bad memories serve us well.  Maybe they allow two of us to have the same conversation over and over again and it's OK.  Maybe they allow us to dismiss the ways that we've been wronged without realizing we've dismissed them. When it comes to music, forgetting how that one note in the Rach #3 can bring me to tears every time I hear it, is really priceless.  That, in fact, drives me to listen to it again, and again, and again...  but only after I've forgotten it just enough to make me long to hear it again.  And when I do finally hear that note again (in context, of course), my heart flutters, the corners of my eyes dampen a little, my teeth show a little, and I'm satisfied all over again.  (Sometimes I want to punch Mr. R in the face for being so damn good to me.) I'm thankful for my forgetful brain.  It helps put smiles on my face time and time again.