Imagine a friend telling you about their weekend, or perhaps you're telling someone else about it, or even reminiscing about it yourself. You could describe the sensory details you experienced, like the cool breeze, the colors of the sunset, or the aroma of coffee; or you could focus more on the thoughts and emotions the experience evoked, such as feeling free, recalling old dreams you'd half-forgotten, or noticing a shift within you. While both accounts describe the same objective facts, the way you present them completely affects how you remember them later.

Now that there is so much talk about memory – historical memory, re-memorization of old aggressions, memory training, diseases linked to memory loss... – I propose that we distinguish between have memory and remember. Have memory It would be the mental quality that allows us to remember facts that are fairly close to what happened in the past. We say, "Remember that New Year's Eve dinner where we had cheese fondue?" And we respond, "Now that you mention it, yes. Ten or fifteen years ago. What a memory you have!" And having a bad memory would be forgetting facts and names.