Q. What am I doing when I’m “trying to remember”? When I form my hand into a fist, when I kick the stone, when I lift the box, I know what action I’m performing — but when I’m trying to remember, trying to think, what action am I performing?
I suppose I no more know how I am forming the fist than I know how I am trying to remember; but because I can actually see myself forming the fist, I am more certain that I’m actually doing something.
Also: there may be an analogy between telling myself to remember something and telling myself to run faster… Sometimes I tell myself to run faster and I can’t, don’t. Sometimes I try to remember and I can’t, don’t. (Sometimes I tell myself to stop running and I don’t, same with memory. “If we could only forget…”)
Similar: realizing the box is heavier than I thought and so I will have to exert myself more — can I exert myself enough to lift this heavy box? … That is like — can exert myself enough to remember what that guy’s name is again? Sometimes yes, I can summon the strength to lift the box — to remember the name.
Similar: what about that period of life in which, relative to now, my strength had seemed boundless with respect to all kinds of things? In those days it had been other boys that caused me to identify the limits of the strength I could exert. Why, despite my trying, could I not run as fast as those boys?
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 
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