We know we can’t change the past. Even if we could, as the paradox tells us, changing the past would change what we are, possibly even eliminating us from the present. No, the past is done. Or is it?
Memories of details fade, but altered recall can come upon us like a cloudburst. We walk in showers of past causes and their effects all changed by present attitudes, intervening experiences, knowledge, and desires. We shouldn’t be surprised if two people remember an event differently.
Life in the present isn’t always what we think it is. We know we lack full awareness of any circumstance, a condition that can be easily demonstrated. Until I point out to you that you can feel your chair, you focus on these words and not the pressure on your elbows, back, and butt. In all your past “seated” experiences the seating itself rarely resurfaces; yet, it was part of the experiences just beyond your conscious focus. When consciousness arises, it has a focal point.
It’s that point that acts as the center for a memory, but it is never the full memory that precipitates into your present. Just as clouds form when water vapor condenses and grows into droplets on unseen dust particles called condensation nuclei, memories form and grow like drops. And just as water drops can pick up other substances before they encounter the ground, so memories acquire foreign matter on the way to the present. Memory drops can tie fictions to history and lend a degree of falsity to remembrance. False memories, we know, have been problematic in more than a few witnesses.
As a memory cloud obscures details of past realities, it can protect us from past unpleasantness, blurring the points of tragedy and failure while enhancing the shape of successes. But there is a downside, and it has to do with those aspects of every “present” that remain in the background just outside conscious focal points.
Sometimes the cloud washes us in disfigured memories. In their altered forms they condense as amorphous substances that precipitate as monsters in present consciousness: Phobia, Grudge, and Bias. The three come to us from the past made complex by our inability to be totally aware in any “present.” Yes, there might be some small condensation nucleus on which each of these monsters formed, but they grew large by the inclusion of unseen substances, matter peripheral to consciousness. You might never know the exact details of their growth, but as you sit there reading this, you can realize how they have been with you all along much like your unfelt chair.
Memories of details fade, but altered recall can come upon us like a cloudburst. We walk in showers of past causes and their effects all changed by present attitudes, intervening experiences, knowledge, and desires. We shouldn’t be surprised if two people remember an event differently.
Life in the present isn’t always what we think it is. We know we lack full awareness of any circumstance, a condition that can be easily demonstrated. Until I point out to you that you can feel your chair, you focus on these words and not the pressure on your elbows, back, and butt. In all your past “seated” experiences the seating itself rarely resurfaces; yet, it was part of the experiences just beyond your conscious focus. When consciousness arises, it has a focal point.
It’s that point that acts as the center for a memory, but it is never the full memory that precipitates into your present. Just as clouds form when water vapor condenses and grows into droplets on unseen dust particles called condensation nuclei, memories form and grow like drops. And just as water drops can pick up other substances before they encounter the ground, so memories acquire foreign matter on the way to the present. Memory drops can tie fictions to history and lend a degree of falsity to remembrance. False memories, we know, have been problematic in more than a few witnesses.
As a memory cloud obscures details of past realities, it can protect us from past unpleasantness, blurring the points of tragedy and failure while enhancing the shape of successes. But there is a downside, and it has to do with those aspects of every “present” that remain in the background just outside conscious focal points.
Sometimes the cloud washes us in disfigured memories. In their altered forms they condense as amorphous substances that precipitate as monsters in present consciousness: Phobia, Grudge, and Bias. The three come to us from the past made complex by our inability to be totally aware in any “present.” Yes, there might be some small condensation nucleus on which each of these monsters formed, but they grew large by the inclusion of unseen substances, matter peripheral to consciousness. You might never know the exact details of their growth, but as you sit there reading this, you can realize how they have been with you all along much like your unfelt chair.
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