So there are the tenses - past, present and future. There is the idea of the linear movement of time, and things before now - this very moment - are collectively called the past. But what exactly is the past for each one of us, as an individual? I am not talking about collective histories, merely individual pasts.
Is it the entirety of what transpired? Or is it merely what our brains record AND remember of it? Or is it only that which we remember, even if more was recorded? Is it only that which others remember about our past, depending on what we tell them about it? Is the past unchanging, since technically, it should be? Or does it change, as does our memory of it and our association with our own actions from our past? Do things in the present affect things from the past?
If your boy/girlfriend who you love and care for happened to die unfortunately in a horrible accident, it will probably have a profound effect on your memories of the person. A lot of bad times would be forgotten and almost all the time formerly spent with the now deceased would turn in to one long joy ride that was rudely cut short by the demise. And if the same boy/girlfriend you love and care for happened to meet someone else instead and dumped you consequently, I suppose the effects will be quite substantial again, only in a quite different strain. Many good times will be forgotten and the bad ones magnified, and the former object of affection will be turned in to something akin to a veritable monster, a heartless slimeball.
How often do we actively, consciously change our own memory of the past to fit it in with our present, or even the future? To avoid pangs of guilt, to smooth over glaring contradictions in our own personalities, to forget unpleasantness, to sidestep potential depression, or any of the many other reasons that can be thought of?
So all this fiddling with the past, does it mean we are being un-true to ourselves? Is being untrue that big a deal anyway? Or is truth sacrificable at the altar of happiness? And if even the past can be full of holes, where does one find wholesomeness in life?
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8 comments:
acha, don't jump the gun yet :p
a problem i would suggest some contemplation on: the past only exists in relation to the present. the future only exists as a perception of the present. the present, the now, exists, but when we say the present, it is already the past, for the now is the only thing that really exists. does that mean that living through thought is reliving the past imposed on the present? ;p
on the other hand, the memory of the past is also going to be a fraction of the reality of the past. as such, reliving it with a future (present) perception will over-ride the actual memory of it and create a new one (kind of hitting the save button after editing a doc) and the old memory lost. but does this preclude that the new memory is less 'better' than the old one?
food for thought. as both truth and happiness are relative and absolutes, i think only the truly happy know/feel and are content in that moment ;-) (truth being dependent on perception, happiness being emotive, mental and hearty/feeling, different levels of it?)
i think wholesomeness is in the now, the trick is not reliving the past within it. if you think about it, you're already reliving the past, because thought is a memory, not the perception of the now (feeling). hence, i think this wholesomeness does eventually have something to do with mindlessness (non-thought), which ironically can only be achieved through mindfullness (awareness of perception and mind).
i'm gonna go dance to some german ska. feel free to tell me i missed the point of your post.
its not that you don't get it, its that you, for reasons best known to yourself, always choose to problematise a different - maybe related, but different - issue to the one raised herein.
while i agree with a lot of what you said, i was talking of the past as a collection of factual incidents that happened in each of our personal lives as individuals, and how different factors (including perception) influence it. factual incidents like, so and so wet his bed till he was 23, so and so was molested at the age of 4, so and so slept with 365 men by the time she was 17 and then turned lesbian, so and so accidentally killed someone when no one was looking, you know, all the small stuff.
hence the brief distinction i made between history and past. history, written by the 'victors', is almost definitely an inaccurate description of the way things happened. the past, even though created by ourselves, is also similarly inaccurate in its own ways, for whatever reasons. fellini, according to his friends, invented memories for the sheer pleasure of recounting them in his films. know what i am sayin'?
for the record, you jumped he gun with the 2nd half of your 2nd sentence "the past only exists in relation to the present", without much due contemplation to what i have said.
food for thought. even though both you and me made the same journey for 'research' for our dissertations and we were both equally clueless to start with (lets just assume that equality), why was the final process of writing and submitting it (not the actual product itself) so strikingly different? you had an year more too! :p
true, but it was also written in different time frames ;p
but you contradict yourself. facts never exist, for to exist they are perceived and we both know perception, however optimal, is skewed anyway (buddha not withstanding). hence, the reliving of the memory (remembering), slants it even more, by cutting away more and more details, so that we literally only remember what we want.
that's why it is always relational, never fact, regardless of whether the 'core' did happen or not, and the bias of perception is the key, but i doubt whether a 'complete' recollection could ever take place, not least because of perception in the present is skewed to what is deemed worth remembering.
the example of the tree we walk by everyday comes to mind, disappearing to the background, even though the memory of it as a singular object exists, for as much as we observe it in the moment, the memory of it is never as complete as that observation, lost the moment after we have stopped observing it. and after observing it the first time, even though we 'see' it, the details of it are blurred because it is not observed with the same vigor on the second passing. so with something meaningful, especially something laden with trauma (emotional, psychological, physical, etc), is bound to be even more skewed than the original, which is skewed anyway vis-a-vis the 'reality'.
in terms of creating memories, recently in the black swan book, the idea that people have invented memories of being abused as children, because the idea that one has suppressed such a memory is passed around, partly because in the instances it does happen, we tend to forget the event causing the trauma, but also because the current psychological condition affects how the experience of the past is remembered. hence fellini aside, we all do it, except that until proven otherwise, people go on believing it and indeed, because accepting the proof to the contrary is something few people are able to do (admit you're wrong, etc), people get even more convoluted within the memory, regardless of how much 'truth' it did hold.
(hence the idea that regret eats you up inside...)
it was different because i dug till the end, because my antagonism, based on my own ideas of conflict with what i perceived to be a practice of domination, prevented me from writing it until the deadline had passed (form of protest), at which point it didn't matter anymore and the whole thing came out, in what, a day and half? :p i was my own worst enemy :D
buddha is best left out from here. he had a post to himself already, and if he is a good boy, maybe he will get another :p
facts are not always relational. sometimes, they are pure imaginary; since you agree that if its perceived, it becomes a 'fact'. so if i weave something imaginary in a story i tell you about my past and it is believed as such, it becomes a part of my past.
anyway, aint taking away from anything you said. pretty much in the same boat, for a change :p
http://manijhe.wordpress.com/2008/11/25/prive-monad-prive-monadistics/
ps: the linked post is related;)
interesting stuff, manijhe. on the notion of oneness, etc however, i had rather not comment here.
like i said. it's a post about something that only touches this question of wholeness in your post a little. but what to do, im a visual person. i think in crayons :P
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