but they only emerge throughout one's life as specks of light, as it were, against the darkness, as a corner torn from a huge picture, which has all faded and disappeared except for that little corner
That is how Dostoevsky describes long term memory in The Brothers Karamazov, chapter 4 of book 1.
I'm always amazed at people who have supreme confidence of their past memories, especially the distant past. The detail, the storylines, the timelines.
I am not saying that the stories are made up, however my understanding of how memory works is more aligned with Dostoevsky's description.
We have little corners of the big picture that remain. Those corners are the moments that have not faded away. Our storytelling is simply the ability to piece together enough remaining pieces, while we fill in the holes and details.
Those memories gain clarity the more we repeat and tell the story.
As I understand it, this means our strong memories are as much fictional filler as they are an accurate account of the event.
I have learned to question my memory of events more often than not. We probably are not too far away from every memory being logged digitally, which would mean there would be no faded or torn corners of the picture.