Mackenna 2: Why do we choose to remember the small things in life?

As I was doing my psychology homework over the weekend, I found myself flashing back to old memories from when I was a child. We are currently learning about developmental psychology, and one of the questions that really bugged me involved what age we have our earliest memories. The earliest memories I can recall are all from events of extreme emotion, particularly fear.

My earliest memory, or what I perceive to be my earliest memory, comes from what I remember as being the summer after I turned four years old. We were at my grandparents' house, who were still living up in Wantagh, New York in Long Island at that time. We were at the beach for the day, and I happened to be standing in the shallow end of the water. All of a sudden, a huge wave came crashing my head drowning my entire body. I can still so vividly see the water rushing over my face, as I remember my eyes being open.

What bothers me about the specific memory is not the intensity of it, but the fact that I chose to remember something so simple. This memory lasted no more than five seconds, yet I chose to remember it. Why would I choose to remember that moment, but not my fourth birthday party, or my first trip to Disney? Why would I choose to allow a memory that was so short and insignificant become so important to me?

Although I can't answer these questions for myself, what I do know for sure based on research is that moments of intense emotions tend to be the ones we remember best, no matter how short they are. I found this to be really cool that we can remember these tiny memories but not be able to recall other things that you would think would be important in somebody's life.

I still can't fully comprehend why this memory has always stuck out to me, but I'm sure I will better understand the meaning behind this in the future.