In Eulogy, the final episode of Black Mirror’s seventh season, a man receives a device that allows him to virtually enter a photograph and explore its location. He is asked to use it to recall stories about a woman who has passed away — someone who had been his girlfriend decades earlier. After their breakup, he resented her. As he revisits his past, long-buried memories resurface, revealing how disrespectful and self-absorbed he had once been. Remembering was healing, her memory is now cleared.

In Ted Chiang’s short story The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, a journalist acquires a remem — a device that records every moment of a person’s life. As he revisits his past through the records of others, he recognizes the bitterness with which he had treated his daughter. Regretting his behaviour, he tries to explain himself, but she rejects it. She doesn’t need remembering. Forgetting was valuable: it allowed them to mend their bond as adults. In time, forgiveness may follow.

It struck me how closely related the two stories are. Both acknowledge memory is malleable, bending and adapting to our needs — to the point of distorting them. Updating your memories to a more faithful version hurts, but it can make you a better human. Chiang’s story goes a step further, it explores what you do afterward. And it suggests: appreciate the forgetting, too.