False Memories???

Well somehow my Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule turned into a giant Tuesday and Saturday post. I'm forced to give myself grace again. I'm learning though. It was a fun and productive week, just not quite what I thought I'd get done. Sort of an ugly hand off from July to August but it'll get the job done.

Here's a story about planting artificial memories in lab mice. That's right, inception is becoming possible.

It makes me think about where our memories really come from. I have some friends that rewrite their personal history almost immediately and it drives me crazy. After a night when they get smashed and nearly start a bar fight over a hot woman who was sitting next to her MMA fighting boyfriend, they'll tell you how much fun they had the last night and how much that one chick kept coming onto them. When you explain your version of reality they claim it doesn't sound right at all.

It's frustrating for me, because I don't see how anyone can make better choices if they're willing to blind themselves to the reality of their behavior. Then again I have other friends who magnify their failings. We need to realize that only part of our perception is really real. I'm not talking about subjective truth here. I'm merely saying that only certain parts of what we've experienced is objectively real. The rest of what our minds record is our response to the objective facts.

Nor do I agree that facts = truth. Who we really are is often 180 degrees from how we've lived out our experiences. I believe that when something bad happens, dark forces try to interpret that event for us. We often make an agreement with the darkness. For example, we don't know the answer to an obvious question and we think, "I didn't know because I'm stupid." Are you? Are you really stupid or did you just not know some trivial thing that others happened to? The book, Self Esteem, by McKay and Fanning calls the dark force, the pathological critic.

Sometimes I'm so terrified of being proud and then falling, that I avoid trying at things I don't know I can do. Sometimes I feel like a compilation of my past failures, and it's hard to see the things about me that are worthy of applause. Sometimes lose out of the gate, just to avoid the trying and falling short.

Now I said sometimes for a reason. Don't freak out. There's a difference between feeling down on occasion and being clinically depressed. I feel just fine right now, but I wanted to touch on the topic. We have to question just how much we are going to let the past shape our future. I'll leave you with this definition of forgiveness. "Forgiveness is letting go of the possibility of a better past."

Have a great day and I'll see you all tomorrow at the Loyal Local event in the Hilton downtown Vancouver.