[ WP ] Human longevity outpaces the brain 's ability to store data .

It's weird how the brain prioritises the influx of information constantly streaming through it. The things we remember where others are lost. 
 
 As a species, we've always been good at faces. Basic pattern recognition that allowed us to survive our predators those millions of years ago in the African Savannah. That allowed us to interpret if the person opposite us was a threat or an ally. 
 
 First times are something else we're good at. A new experience that sends a ripple through the synapses as new connections are formed, our memories tightening and locking into place, strengthened by the rush of emotion that occurs at the time. Your first kiss. That time you passed all your exams. 
 
 The first time you killed. 
 
 Some things used to always remain with you, etched permanently into the recesses of your consciousness. 
 
 But what happens when your physical self last longer than your identity? 
 
 The brain only has a certain capacity, something around thirty terabytes I've been told, and when you reach that limit it follows the same process as a computer. Overwriting bytes with new data. But you ca n't choose which ones you want to keep. 
 
 The superficial information wanes first, your sense of time drawing out until you realise that six months have passed and you have no recollection of any of the space in between. I know where I was, because I've read the report, but I have no recollection of being there. 
 
 Those six months turn to six years. Then decades. And still it all continues, the constant cycle of deletion and re-writing. After so much time that you ca n't even remember when it started, even the deeper memories are rooted out and destroyed. If it were not for those around me as a reminder, I would forget my own name sometimes. Faces that come and go almost with the memories. 
 
 Nobody can remember when the war started, but the only memory I will have with me forever is his face. Everything else of my life before is gone. 
 
 Science had allowed us to survive forever, but at the cost of killing us.
