We should remember that we forgot them or something

"Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence."
-Sholem Asch

I came across the above quote today, and, while I found that it was profound in its own way, I also discovered that I mostly disagree. Now I suppose I could be taking this quote from a different context than than Mr. Asch's original intent, but hear me out.

Memory is incredibly important to me. I revel in memories and reliving events that have happened. I love that I can remember multiple dreams from each night. For me, memory is a solace. In comparison with writing, it is the non-fiction work of imagination and comforting in that it is at least partly true. No memory is unbiased but neither is it untrue.

I am who I am because of what I remember. True, I may employ my own selective amnesia to remember only those things that I want to remember, but I certainly do not only recall pleasantries. I compartmentalize but eventually the compartments are opened; delayed reactions or emotions but certainly they are not forgotten.

In a grander, larger sense, the world is what it is today because it chooses to remember rather than forget. We learn through living. Forgetting that we've lived and how makes it impossible to do grow, either individually or collectively. I took a wonderful class in school, Writing for the World Wide Web. It sounds like a contemporary writing class with uncharted territory, and in a way it is, but it also gave a look at what writing has done and what it will do in the future. Man began forming a language to communicate and he wrote things down to remember them. But he wrote them down so that that memory existed outside of himself so that he could contain other knowledge without losing knowledge. In essence, man learned to write things down so that he could forget them and remember them again.

I remember finding this so interesting at the time, because I'd never really thought of writing as that way. I adore writing and scribbling in little notebooks and writing down random thoughts here. It never occurred to me that I was trying to remember everything but writing it down to forget it and remember it later. Wouldn't it be fun if life was that way? If we lived lifetime after lifetime on various planes of existence, forgetting for a while the things we've learned to learn other things, to gain other experiences, but, in the end, remembering the entire lot of experience collectively? Our own breathing autobiographers....

It seems this subject has come up often lately among old and newer friends (including Lyndsey and Mike) in terms of the contemplation of the purpose of life or the way it comes about. What is comforting is that it is not, or so I hope it is not, a pretentious type of philosophising. We are not discussing the simple meaning of life but the meanings in life (or so I think). Certainly I am aware that so many people over so many periods of time have contemplated the same and perhaps reached different conclusions. We are not necessarily original thinkers.

I've always wondered about religion in general. Do people believe things that they want to be believe or do they believe things because they're true? Everyone believes that their religions are correct and that everyone else is in some way wrong. Are we all wrong? Is there ever a way to prove anything? As a practicing Christian Scientist, I am at least comforted by the fact that I can demonstrate what I believe on a daily, second-to-second basis. Demonstrations are, in fact, what drive the religion. Love is what drives divine Science.

[For those of you who don't understand that statement, I apologize. I will not stop to explain it at the moment but perhaps in future posts an explanation will come]

Christian Science says that man is not material, he is spiritual. That God is Love. And that man is the reflection of God. In my 25 years of study, it seems everything else in the religion follows these ideas. As a result, we seek to remedy problems by seeing their spiritual reality. Healing is always eminent, always occurring, always possible. I will not tell you that Christian Science is the way or the only way to reach God or it is only truth that you're going to find in this world. I know it works for me. One of the main arguments against it comes from an objection to the idea that there is no matter or material world. The objection is that if there is no material world, then why does one appear to exist at all? If it is not real, then why does it appear to be the only reality we know? One of my Sunday School teachers gave a quiet response. He said that he couldn't prove that what he knew to be true was true. But that he knew that he was doing something right because he was seeing the healing.

That's the way I feel. I know I'm doing something right, even if it's only loving my fellow man. Even if it's only recognizing God as Love. People get so caught up in who is right and who is wrong and who is going to burn in hell and who won't and saving people. To share part of another one of my favorite quotes, we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. Salvation is an individual experience.

I'm rambling, I know, and responding to so many questions and conversations that I've had with others over time about life and the world and religion and spirituality. This post probably doesn't follow very well without being able to get into my mind and see the color of my memory that tints this entire collection of thoughts. But, in the end, that is what this is all for. To put down in words what I remember so that I can forget it and remember again. And so that others can hopefully one day understand.

Editor's Note: A cookie to the person who can name the origination of the quote that is the title of this post.