Memory defines us in so many ways, but it’s not exactly what we think it is.

We tend to imagine memory almost like a filing cabinet — a faithful record of the past we can pull from when needed. But according to new research, memory is less about storing facts and more about shaping the story of our lives. It helps us make sense of the present and construct meaning out of chaos.

Dr. Charan Ranganath is a neuroscientist at University of California Davis, and the author of Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters. His work has transformed how scientists understand the mind’s most mysterious function. I invited him onto The Gray Area to talk about why forgetting is as essential as remembering, how emotion shapes what we recall, why trauma lingers, and how collective memory can bind — or divide — entire societies.

As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Gray Area on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You write that the most important message from memory science isn’t “remember more.” So what is memory for?

It’s not a vault that stores every experience. Memory is a resource we draw on to understand what’s happening now, to plan, and to anticipate the future.

When people say, “I have a bad memory,” what do you think they’re misunderstanding?

If someone truly had a “bad memory,” as in clinically impaired, they couldn’t function independently. I’ve tested patients like that. What most people mean is, “I can’t always recall what I want, when I want.” Often these are high-functioning people who expect to remember everything. That expectation is the mismatch.

But surely some memories are “better” than others…or is “better/worse” the wrong frame?

That’s the mistake. People conflate “more” with “better.” Take highly superior autobiographical memory: Some folks can tell you what they ate on March 7, 2011, who won a game, what the weather was. You might think they have a great memory. But they don’t learn a new language faster than anyone else. And many report it’s a burden; they can’t stop replaying minor negative moments. Some even call it a curse. So “more” isn’t necessarily “better.”

So in my case, I’d say that I have a somewhat weird and annoying memory. I can remember whole chunks of certain books or random trivia, but then I routinely forget faces and names — things I actually want to remember. Why?

There are two big issues. First, competition. Memories compete with each other. If my desk is piled high with near-identical papers, it’s hard to find one. Faces are like that: Most have two eyes, a nose, a mouth; they’re highly similar. Names are also similar, and the mapping between a face and a name is arbitrary. “Baker” used to refer to someone who baked bread; now it doesn’t. So you’ve got similar inputs and an arbitrary link. That’s interference.

The other issue has to do with attention. When you meet someone, your attention is split: noise, small talk, your own self-consciousness. If the name doesn’t get a clean........

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