So, as I once again put fingers to keyboard shaped grindstone, I am reminded of a truth about us as people that seems to be set aside so very easily by our own genetic makeup…
Yep, started heavy again today guys. You in particular. Yes, YOU Iman! Best turn off the TV and iPad and stereo and… Kids(?)… Because that’s a thing we can do, obviously. I’ve heard sugar works. Until it doesn’t.
“What the hell are you talking about this time dude?” you may reasonably and loudly ask. “You always start with this long-winded bollocks. Say it and move on!”
And fair enough.
You are not your past.
Thank you for coming. I appreciate it immensely.
What’s that, Craig? I’ve over corrected and said not enough now?
Awkward… And fair enough.
Let’s break it down a little, then.
Who is You?
Is it the things you own? The people you associate with? Your cup size/dick length? The label on your shirt? The new PB you got at the gym last week in front of thew whole swole squad, which was just in time too, because they were starting to whisper about your lifting cred given how much pre-workout you take every workout to turn your cells into unstable nuclear power plants but just weren’t seeing the gains bro? Thank GOD Francis was there to post it to socials or otherwise it wouldn’t have counted…
Or, maybe, You is the presence and consciousness that exists in this moment. That is one in a series of moments that happen one after the other into the future, stretching back into the past.
Maybe its both. Because both exist. At least existed, anyway.
But if it doesn’t exist anymore, does it still count?
Well, that depends on a few things too. Mostly on how You see reality and your place in it. But, I promise, I am aware that I’m getting a little existentialist and metaphysical there. So maybe we step back from that particular cliff face for today. Some other blog.
So, I ask a different question. What is memory for?
Is it to relive everything that’s happened to you, in a continuous loop, discarding the present moment for one that’s already been?
Or is it to provide context and shape the reality we experience now, based on information gathered from previous experiences about how You and the world we live in sometimes works?
Which one sounds more interesting? Which one sounds more… helpful?
Are you defined by the time you went to school some 20 odd years ago with… a pimple! And one of the cool kids saw it and called you something incredibly imaginative, like Pus Face™ and because it was that cool kid, everyone started doing because, as has been previously mentioned before, SOME people think we are defined by who we associate with… You know what I’m talking about. THOSE kids…
OR did those pimples clear up, and you have literally nothing to do with those lovely people anymore, so maybe you aren’t actually Pus Face™ anymore either? Maybe you never were. But memories can be funny like that.
As flippant as I’m being there, as traumatic as something like bullying undoubtedly is, is our past ever really a true representation of who we were, let alone are now? Could it ever be?
Because I’m here to tell you, the You I’m talking about, is waaaaaay more than petty old bullshit. More than even we ourselves can ever genuinely know. But that’s okay, as long as you know yourself better than people and circumstances that might use that lack of knowledge against you do. Because then you get to realise and remember that you know they aren’t right, that your past isn’t who you really were, are or will be.
But it’s not me that needs to believe that…
You are not your past.
Any more than you are the experiences that happened back then.
Or the meanings we attached to those experiences.
Or the behaviours that made sense to build into ourselves as a reaction to the meaning we gave to those events.
You aren’t even your feelings.
Those are not you. They help define experience and provide stimulus that can encourage growth, which is not and never will be who You really are. Or which direction who You really are chooses to direct that growth.
That past doesn't have to define anything more than a contrast to what you would choose for yourself from that moment to this moment and into the next moment.
Yes, Kira, it IS scary. I get it.
To not be super invested in that constant past tethering you to something that we feel we can have certainty about. But the irony is that our memories change as we do, we change the past based on perspective and time and feeling and misremembered details that carry new meaning.
So how tangible and solid is the past to our individual selves anyway?
What if we established a more solid tether to reality within and about ourselves, because then we can at least manage the change within us, unlike the chaos that exists beyond us.
Becoming aware of who you are is grounding too, not just what happened to and around the meat popsicle we tell to do stuff sometimes. Or worse, we let push us around if we let it act on the past…
The past can be a signpost, or a prison.
What do you choose?
Where would you like it to take you?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Søren Kierkegaard
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