"Lately, I feel like everyday is being compressed."
Yuki murmured.
"Compressed?" Aoi asked back.
"Somehow, time passes quickly. Before I know it, a week has gone by."
Riku laughed. "I get it. A day ends in the blink of an eye."
Aoi pondered. "Interesting metaphor. It might be similar to data compression."
"What do you mean?" Yuki became interested.
"There are two types of data compression," Aoi opened her notebook. "Lossless and lossy compression."
"Lossless?"
"Compression that can perfectly restore original data. Like ZIP files."
Riku asked. "Lossy?"
"Compression that discards some information. Like JPEG or MP3."
Yuki began to understand. "Memory might be like that too."
"What do you mean?"
"Important events, I remember in detail. That's lossless compression."
"But everyday trivial things?" Riku continued.
"I forget them. Lossy compression."
Aoi nodded. "Good observation. Human memory is naturally compressed."
"But why compress?" Yuki asked.
"Capacity limits. Brain's memory capacity is finite."
"So we discard unimportant things."
"Yes. Lossy compression judges importance."
Riku thought. "Then how is importance decided?"
"That's the difficult question," Aoi acknowledged. "MP3 removes frequencies humans can't hear well."
"Perceptually unimportant things."
"Life might be the same," Yuki said. "Emotionally unimportant memories fade."
Aoi nodded deeply. "That's why the same day has different memories for different people."
"Different compression criteria."
"Exactly."
Riku had a new perspective. "But what happens if you compress too much?"
"Image quality drops. Sound quality degrades," Aoi answered.
"Life too?"
"Memories become thin. Details are lost."
Yuki said quietly. "That's why I want to keep important things without compression."
"With lossless compression," Riku added.
"But keeping everything lossless is impossible," Aoi said realistically.
"Then what should we do?"
"Choose. Consciously remember what's truly important."
Yuki wrote in her notebook. "Memory = selective compression"
"Good expression," Aoi acknowledged.
Riku pondered. "I want to lower my compression rate."
"What do you mean?"
"I want to remember every day more vividly. Even small details."
Aoi smiled. "For that, increase entropy."
"Entropy?"
"New experiences, unpredictable events. These are hard to compress."
Yuki understood. "Same everyday gets compressed easily."
"Yes. Because there's a pattern. Predictive coding works."
"But when doing new things?"
"Can't compress. So it stays in memory."
Riku stood up. "Then let's do something new now."
"That's sudden," Yuki laughed.
"To escape from everyday like data compression."
Aoi nodded. "Good idea. Information-theoretically correct too."
The three left the club room. Seeking new experiences. To create uncompressed memories.
Every day gets compressed. But you can choose how to compress. Keep important things, take in new things. That's the wisdom of living everyday like data compression.