Yeah, I chased that same problem for a while too. What cracked it open for me was using a different ruler entirely. It stopped being what’s the closest memory and turned into what still matters, what’s about to matter, why, and what can change those priorities..

That’s honestly where it stopped being retrieval and started feeling more like actual memory. So far it hasn’t really left me hanging in any work scenarios, even in chaos or multi-process situations, because it’s constantly updating continuity and direction as things change.

Then it kind of just naturally solved a way to handling decay / consolidation once the history gets long. At one point I several thousand revolving memories but I haven't found any weaknesses yet.