Part A: Impression

There are aspects of us that make us human. For that there is no doubt. Upon closer examination we see that our actions are rife with instinctive behavior. How much of what we do is guided by those actions is debatable, and how much that driving force we can consciously willfully deter is also debatable. One can make no argument that human beings are driven by forces other than conscious controllable thought. We have a heart; it beats whether we want it to or not.

We are simply and completely at the will of our memories. They haunt us and teach us about ourselves and those around us. To some the haunting fog of our past is a shadow cast upon it all. All the images and sounds of our history become a hazy dull coating on those irrepressible moments in time. Those key events that shaped the beings that we are today. They are uniquely us. They define us. They literally are us in the sense that we are more than a body. We are more than a beating heart.

We understand others only when we come to understand ourselves. It starts with the child who has no sense of others. It ends with the adult who by virtue of simply being human understands the concept inherent in the word, “other.” We are painfully aware that others don’t understand us. We are comically unaware that they actually do. In a paradox the scope that encompasses the entirety of humanity we see that it is actually easier to understand others than it is to understand ourselves. After all, our eyes can only see outward.

One could make a very good case that our being is simply the total sum of our memories. The lives lived are a combination of thoughts, events, and times intermingled with those of others. We share our memories. I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time, I lived. (more…)