Forgetfulness
“Forgetfulness is the forgetting of Wisdom's laws concerning virtue, and the beginning of its cure is obedience from the heart to Wisdom. Such obedience is the road to life and peace.” (Orthodox Study Bible, Proverbs 3:1,2)
“In the 1981 film Excalibur, the wizard Merlin tells King Arthur and his knights that ‘it is the doom of men that they forget.’ This is true. Due to the virus of sin in us we tend to easily forget all of the wrong things we say or do, while easily remembering the wrongs said and done to us. We forget what we should remember and remember what we should ‘forgive and forget,’ reducing these latter words to a meaningless cliché. Only a continual focus on Christ will heal this way of thinking and being.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
"Since God is invisible, forgetfulness of God is one of the greatest human temptations. Fasting helps to mitigate that forgetfulness and, in so doing, makes love for God possible." (Aristotle Papanikolaou)
“This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love.” (Peter Kreeft)
“Monotony and misery cannot exist where there is love. But the fire of love must be kept burning warmly & brightly with the sweet wood of sacrifice. In teaching us to cross the “I” out of life, our Lord tells us the secret of happiness; what the Saints call the ecstasy of self-forgetfulness. For divine love is always self-effacing, seeks to give rather than to receive, to serve rather than be served, to love rather than to be loved, and will sacrifice anything for the beloved. Only then does love become a clean and holy fire in the heart, and not an ugly flare of lust.” (St. Seraphim of Sarov)