On Experience and Memory
It has occurred to me recently, that when you are living in the past you are either depressed or joyfully nostalgic. This points us to a truth that I don’t think many people realize.
It has also occurred to me that when you are living in the future, you are either anxious or thrilled at the opportunity, and this too points us to a truth that I don’t think many have considered.
And then there is the present, that explicitly and tangible reality that you live in, which defines the moment, and that which the denotation of emotions are able to be express with clarity.
Each time frame is one in the same really, but the fact that the human mind sees them are distinct is a profound thought nonetheless.
Think of a human as a computer. There is short term memory bank and long term memories storage. The short term memory is living the experience. Long term memory is the collage of experiences, where lessons are derived and where life decisions are calculated. In the case of humans, when we are more “present” in the moment when are in tuned with our emotions, and we are “being” who we are without assigning too much casual weight to the experiences we feel alive. That living can be horrible or Joyful, but there is no explaining away how one feels and what one is during that time. For us, the memory, the long term storage is what we use to guess at the future, and what we use to derive meaning from the world. The memories are reflections of patterns that we see in the world and determine all the action that we do. The long term memories are where the past actions are combined to allow a person to rationally assign fear to situations that are realistically not present.
Despite the fact that no one knows the future, the human mind is capable of creating a “present”, or a notional future, in which the persona of the person can live out the fantasy in a way that replicates the “real” or the possibly of reality. The human mind is capable of halting future actions, in the present time, by throwing up examples from the past, after assigning meaning to unlived experiences. This is the basis of fear, of greed, of cautiousness, and ultimately of not living in the now.
Each of us has two, yes (2) two, types of selfs. There is the first self, the experiencing self, that which lives and is present in the now. This “self” doesn’t think of the future, doesn’t look to the past, but gets trapped in the moment. It is raw emotion, the person in their root that lives. It can be either conscious or unconscious, depending on the type of life that is being lived. Some people refer to it as the “Elephant”. It doesn’t concern itself with much, but is often over ruled by the second self. The second self, the “Rider” or the long term memory storage bank, see the world in terms of future, past, and creation of memories. It is not living in the present, but rather functions as a “memory” of pictures of what has transpired. What happens here is the “Rider” looks at photographs that the “Elephant” took while on a long ride, not actually looking at the road himself. From those pictures the Rider determines what should be taken from an experience, without actually living in the experience, in order to determine which direction the “Elephant” should be steered.
See, when you are living in the present, you are using the Elephant as a vehicle, and the rider is the analyzer. There is a trick that you can do to increase the Rider’s awareness of the now, and Elephants presence in the now.
First, you can write a journal. This allows the elephant to take notes for the rider, so that the rider has a bigger, more robust picture to take information from. Dually, the Rider will give the elephant, in the future of course, a new way to deal with the present, which they both have a stake in. The elephant cannot know where to go without the Rider, and the Rider cannot get to the destination that the Elephant can take him to without the Big E. (not ego).
Next, you can take pictures of situations in order to remind both the elephant and the Rider of the past, and to help guide to the future.
How we can have two different memory banks in the head that can each make contrary decisions due to how we feed them seems like a recipe for failure, but yet, this is how we are designed. The questions must be raised.
So What?
How do I get them on the same page?
What is the meaning of having two distinctly different functions in the head?
Is there another function in the head that we do not actually want to acknowledge?
Well, maybe in the future I will write about this a little, but for now I just wanted to type.
Peace be with you all.
To gather more information on this, but to give it your own understanding read/watch these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Hypothesis
People may have to write a paper for educational pursuits. The paper may take 30 hours to write, 10 hours of reading is required, and directions have to be followed. The experiencing self will be pissed at all of this, or will be excited at the chance to learn and grow. The long term self will associate the lessons from the experience by considering emotions at the beginning and the end of the experience, as well as the outcome, but more weight will be placed on the outcome. If the grade was an A, the long term self will allow the time and effort of the action. An F will result, the long term self will make sure the action is quit, even if the short term self enjoys it, unless there is a long term goal that has to be realized.
What does this mean?
Even if you are enjoy a thing in the present or you have in the past, if you are living in the past or the future, you will not continue the action if you think (based of the past outcomes – not experiences) that there is no point, you will stop.
People that live in the “now” life FOR the experience without trying to force an outcome.
That is where happiness is – in the enjoyment of the present “Now”.
Contentment is acceptance of the past – AKA your life.
Excitement is acceptance of the future – AKA what is to come.