Sunday, November 27, 2011

Memory

Memory rewrites our actual experience of the present moment so that what we recollect is not what really happened.

When recalling our past, it is as if we were reading the Cliff Note version of a complex novel. Nor does the editor consult us on what to include in this brief synopsis.

Thoreau wryly asks "why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering?"

To be fully awake is to have the direct experience of reality in each moment of our lives, to see things as they actually are without viewing our experiences through the distorting prism of memory.
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