I am going to tell a brief story about my friend at his funeral. The incident happened 65 years ago. The problem is that I am unsure whether the details of the story, as I remember them, are factual or just in my imagination. No one who was a witness at the time is still living. Should I make this story delightful and not worry about the factsye7, or make the story short, truthful and perhaps dull? — Name Withheld

From the Ethicist:

Researchers in psychology and neuroscience regularly tell us that episodic memory is less like a video recorder than like a story processor. Share a memory, and your brain actively constructs something, piecing it together in ways that are responsive to other beliefs, assumptions and values you may have. When you overhear conversations on a bus, train, subway or street, you’re very often listening to people recount previous conversations. (‘‘So she says … . And I’m like … . And she says … .’’) Psychologists would tell us that we may be listening to a new memory being created. It’s not that the stories we trot out are tall tales, but they may be on tiptoes.

The story you want to relate — the story that’s meaningful to you — is the one you remember. Given your uncertainty, you can simply throw in the caution ‘‘as I remember it.’’ Others will no doubt tell stories the way they remember them and will be no less subject to the fallibility of human memory, however untroubled their confidence. The difference between you and the other speakers at this funeral, then, might be simply that you’re rightly aware your details could be wrong,PHL63 while they’re wrongly convinced their details are right.

We’re planning a special Ethicist column on sex. Do you have a question you’d like to have answered? Letters about the ethics of desire, intimacy, partnership, consent, kink and related concerns are all welcome. To submit a query, send an email to ethicist@nytimes.com by Jan. 13, 2025.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Such a scenario would represent a notable degree of ticket-splitting, perpetuating a trend captured by surveys throughout this election cycle. Democratic Senate candidates in a number of swing states, including Arizona and Nevada, have consistently polled ahead of the top of the ticket, especially when President Biden was the party’s standard-bearer. As Ms. Harris’s nomination has made the election more competitive, the gap between her and those down-ballot Democrats has narrowed — but the trend persists in most races in swing states.

Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the peopleye7, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.