Dennis Prager: Our Memories Make Us Who We Are

Well, I have thoughts about an issue that is life-changing.

And I don't say that often.

It has actually changed my life, having thought this through.

And that is the importance of memory.

But it has hit me in just, believe it or not, the last 10 days, how incredibly important it is to everything that matters, to happiness, to a country and a civilization surviving, to meaning in life, to judging people fairly.

So let me explain.

Let me put it in the personal, and then I'll globalize it.

in my condition now, paralyzed, I have two choices when I think about good memories.

Oh my God, I can't have

so many of them now.

Or I am so grateful for having had them.

And now what can I do in my condition to have good memories now? But that's a separate issue.

That's everybody's choice.

Memory is a choice.

So let me first speak about its significance.

If a human being loses his memory, he doesn't know who he is.

He doesn't know who his spouse is.

He doesn't know who his children are.

He doesn't know what country he lives in.

We believe that this person is essentially dead.

They're breathing, but they're dead.

We are our memories.

If you lose your memory, you've lost

you.

So I'd like to apply that now.