Memory as choice
Do people have limitations with memory? Well yes of course, it's partly genetic. I would say I have a bad memory (relative to my dad and brother, who probably just have superhuman memories), but also, when I want to, I can remember up to 15 new ideas in my head at a time through a memory palace. This is because I’m consciously trying to remember. When someone has a photographic memory, they may just harbor an extreme care to capture, preserve, and recall a specific type of information. Memory, then, might be less about hardcoded bandwidth and more like an allocation decision.
While it's impressive, there's also a cost to memory. It uses up bandwidth. I wonder if there is a correlation between memory and openness; the more space dedicated towards the past, the less free space is available for optionality in the moment. To not be cluttered with what yesterday’s self did or wanted or regretted or whatever—to have a clear head, an empty head—is to live in the moment with maximum agility. I'm skeptical of this claim, but I have read on the power of forgetting; I just can't quite remember where I came across it.