Meiringspoort waterfall in a dry season

How long should one sit here to remember this view forever? Some instants of experience are buried in the subconscious for long or for life, but recall is neither continuous nor fully controlled.

Is it only the weathering of memories, the limitations of the cerebrum or suppressing mechanisms in the dark recesses that do the damage? Banning a thought from centre stage of the mind after its meaningful impact is a very good thing. Competition among too many memorable moments in the forefront of consciousness would cause cognitive overload, accidents and maybe madness.

On the other hand, students lament the short-term amnesia that makes them fail examinations. The mind (and its nether parts) play tricks, simple ones as well as inexplicable ones.

Sometimes soothing, sometimes torturing by either revealing or concealing stored content almost randomly, the mind steers (or fumbles) the stream of consciousness through waking and dreaming life. The mechanisms involved, partially revealed by Freud, keeps the universe of the mind continually expanding and full of adventure.

Similar to the independence of your spouse, the children or the cat, you cannot always bring your own mind to move in the right direction. There are triggers of association that will elicit something that must be remembered and dangers that will focus the mind wonderfully.

Such mnemonic devices are learnt for living "fully" prepared, facilitating the desired recall at the required instance. Even trusted devices may disappoint at crucial moments and life happens, as everything that is known may be momentarily forgotten by the normal mind.

Behaviour is driven by both our lucid moments but unfortunately by those other moments that arrive unannounced. The probabilities involved in remembering the crucial fact, number, name in time to give the right response are improved by effort, never fully controlled. They change a life or several of them in an instant!

Does all of this make forgetting the sight of a waterfall inconsequential? Or does the answer to that depend on the kind of person one has become from selective focussing, processing and storing earlier important experiences? Human nature is part of nature and its vagaries.