h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"History is a lie agreed upon." -Napoleon Bonaparte

"He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past."
-George Orwell

memories....
Electrical impulses along preformed neural pathways which travel between your conscious and subconscious mind. Often along the way they become distorted and we can no longer remember things as we once could.
In the end, they are little more than compromises to ease dissonance within one's self and with others.
When we talk to others about things that happened long ago, we can never seem to agree upon the details, each having taken something different out of the experience. This often brings about contempt, segregation and even wars. In weak or unstable minds such battles may occur as well, tearing away at one's sanity, dipping them deeper into their own madness. To avoid this, we often sacrifice our own beliefs rather than our lives or sound minds to avoid pain, conflict or further loss of sanity.
Little more than an advanced reflex action.
It often seems that we are little more than machines...