I like to think of memories as a replay feature in your brain. As the movie Inside Out depicts it, memories are played at random and are heavily shaped by emotions and senses. These memories mold peoples’ personalities and interests. However, if we do not actually have emotional characters like Joy and Sadness in our own brains, why do we experience memories?

Recall the last time you ate your favorite food. Think of the taste, the texture, and the experience in which you had the food. Does it make your mouth water? Memories create an alternate world in which you can experience a past event again without physically reliving it. They model what happened in the past and help shape your predictions for the future; in this case, your recollection of the food will shape your prediction of how the food will taste the next time you have it.

However, not everybody will have the same recollection of that same food as you. My experience with the same food and the way it tastes could completely contrast with your experience. This is what makes everybody unique; because people have unique experiences, we can have a diverse, heterogeneous society with different opinions.

For example, in All Quiet on the Western Front, everybody’s different experiences shape their motives for their actions. Take Paul’s experiences. He lived a calm and quiet past. Upon enlisting in the war, he suffered pain far beyond anything he had ever experienced. His memories caused him to long for the suffering to end, and pushed toward this idea with his rebellious nature against Himmelstoss. However, in contrast, Himmelstoss did not experience the same pain until much later in the war. His pleasant memories of holding harsh control over the men made him continue to treat them poorly. These characters acted the way they did because they wanted to relive the experiences of their past memories.

A person’s memories are what makes them who they are because people tend to act or think differently based on what worked well or made them happy in their past experiences. Memories are beneficial to motivate society to progress for the better but may be harmful if people use them to justify negative actions.