Memories: Reliable or Not
By Harlin Magee
Mementos of Truth
In the year 2000, the incredibly profound movie “Memento“ was released. Memento, from the Latin, literally meaning ‘remember’, is the exquisite message of this brilliant movie. How reliable are our memories? Do our memories operate like our vision in that our minds fill in the blind spot where our optic nerve attaches to our retina? Do our minds fill in, add, delete and change some or many or most of the details of our lives? And as time passes, do we in our own minds do to our memories what passing a tale from person to person does to the accuracy of a story? How skewed are our perceptions, such as a tall white woman with her hair tied back, wearing pants and standing in the shadows, seemingly appearing to be a bearded black man or a tall mountain in the distance seeming much closer than it is or “time flies when you’re having fun” or “if I didn’t have bad luck, I‘d have no luck at all”? What is a fact? What is real? What is true? What is the Truth?
Fact One: Most of us regularly lie to ourselves in a frequently failed attempt to be happy.
Fact Two: We forget a few details we would rather not remember &/or add and change memories to better suit our purposes, justify our actions, fit our self-image &/or make us appear to be right. Conversely our personal history is sometimes remembered in a negative way to correspond to our fears and self-doubts, thereby blaming our present difficulties, shortcomings and failures on our past.
Fact Three: We condition ourselves through repetition to remember what we want to be true or what we believe should be true. We seldom want to know the complete real truth; we make up our own personal truth {a private logic that is only reasonable and plausible to us}. We stick to our self-servingly embellished stories and self-fulfilling prophecies.
Fact Four: Memory of our past is not that good anyway, it’s mostly an interpretation, not a precise record. Congruent intact memories are not the same as accurate memories! We often have partial, incoherent, inconsistent, faulty &/or convenient memories we use to justify our actions such as revenge, self-pity, faultfinding and blaming.
Fact Five: We deceive ourselves when we believe the world we observe is exclusively outside our own mind. Although, when we close our eyes the world doesn't disappear; the way we perceive the world is shaped by our own thoughts, our worldview. We use our beliefs, such as “the world is a hostile place” or “everything works out for the best” and our unsubstantiated perceptions of external conditions to justify our actions. We often claim we are motivated by others actions, forcing us to react to the things in our lives that we don't like &/or claim we don't want. We think we seldom do or did anything to draw these things to us. Allegedly, it’s predominantly uncontrollable circumstances, random chance, the unintended consequences of our good deeds and other people’s actions, shortcomings and evil misguided behaviors that cause our troubles. This is not to say that even delusional paranoids cannot have enemies. Evil acts and conspiracies do occur and there are victims and the situationally innocent but generally we receive justice or mercy and grace. None of us is completely faultless without sin though many people carry on the pretense of innocence and goodness. Jesus said (Matthew 19:17) only God is good {absolutely impeccable, incorruptible}!
Fact Six: Perhaps memories are irrelevant when we have the facts. Fact is defined as a thing that is indisputably the case [truth, reality] and in Law it is the truth about events as opposed to interpretation. But the facts are often derived from or influenced by partial, combined &/or faulty memories, limited perspective, prejudices, magical illogical thinking and are seldom free of interpretation. DNA evidence has demonstrated that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. The facts of history are just his story.
Fact Seven: We all have created a puzzle (mystery, paradox) we can never solve by just our own reasoning and efforts alone. This is the mystery created by mistaking our vision and remembrance of the world as a precise picture of reality that traps us in a prison of subjectivity from which escape is impossible without assistance. By mistaking our subjective conclusions about the way things are for the objective truth, we obliterate our awareness of that which is real.
Fact Eight: We all need mirrors (others like ourselves) to remind us of how we are and who we appear to be. Left to our own devices, we primarily see our own subjective viewpoint, not objective empirical reality. When we glimpse our reflection in the responses to us from others and their actions toward us, we can get clues about how we are in the world. Although, as the scripture (1st Corinthians 13:12) reveals, true objective reality is only knowable in spirit: “For now {in this world} we see but a poor reflection in a dark mirror indirectly and obscurely, but then {in spirit} we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.” At some point in our lives, we need to look into the mirrors we can see and face the reflection of who we are, how we shaped our stories and how we have chosen to remember {imagine} our lives. Seeing ourselves in those mirrors requires looking at other people’s behaviors in comparison to our own and for any grain of truth in people’s words and actions toward us.
Fact Nine: But we must have the divine [Holy Spirit] to reveal who we truly are. Divine mind is the only mind that sees eternal objective reality and is our only hope for liberation from this illusion {delusion}. What are the facts? Dolphins have larger brains {usually an indication of greater intelligence} than humans; so, they could be smarter but more brain matter may not always correspond to greater intellect. People are born to be short or tall, beautiful or not, geniuses or idiots, they are abused &/or loved, they are planned and wanted or not. Are these really facts or are they relative to the observer and therefore just opinions? Are they relative to the environment, such as people weigh a certain number of pounds on earth but are weightless in outer space and time is relative to velocity? What is real? Stones are solid, yet they’re made of atoms, which are mostly space. People live once and then die or maybe we are eternal beings. What is the truth? God planned for us and loves and cares for us much more than anyone can ever imagine and He has everyone’s very best interest at heart! God awaits the prodigals’ return!
The Truth: God is The Truth, the same in all circumstances, all the time and from all perspectives, independent of the observer, that which never changes, eternally the same. James (1:17) “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change, without even the shadow of turning”. Knowing God is knowing the real Truth. Romans (8:28) declares, “that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose” and 2nd Corinthians (5:17) reminds us that, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!” Genesis (50:20) assures us that the things that people do that may even be meant to harm us, God intended it for a good purpose that will ultimately override the worlds intentions and effects that were meant for evil. One of my early teachers, Adano Ley, pointed out that evil and devil are live and lived spelled backwards for that which takes away from life is evil and the work of the devil. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha said that attachment is the cause of all suffering. Jesus asks for complete detachment from this world in Mark (8:35) “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.” Though Jesus calls us to a greater allegiance to a higher power, not to complete detachment because Hell, the ultimate suffering is best described as a place of being, devoid of God. Therefore, re-remember your past and release all your attachments to the world and anything that leads to and causes separation from God. We must be willing to let go of what lies behind in order to fully take hold of what lies ahead. The Truth can change the facts. The Truth will set you free.
As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet "This above all: to your own self be true". Also, Shakespeare pondered the question of existence in Hamlet “To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die, to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a satisfying conclusion devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep! To sleep! Perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's insulting, scornful, contemptuous language and treatment. The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his death, that welcome release from life, make with a bare small dagger? Who would these burdens bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country, from whose boundary no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?” Jesus disclosed in Luke [17:21] “The kingdom of God is in your midst, within you”. Go inside to the inner kingdom where while this worldly life remains the extra-corporeal dimensions {the undiscovered country} can be surveyed to map out the Straight Path of Liberation and Ascension to the Realms of Pure Spirit. Go inside to the inner kingdom where the Truth waits for you and awaken and remember the I am that you are.
Discover the honest, real truth about your own life! Harlin Magee is a life coach and spiritual guide with over 25 years of experience helping people discover their true path & purpose. Contact him at 512-451-3888.
This article was posted by Harlin Magee
