We like to think we think of memory as inviolate, but in reality we rely on forgetting. Time heals all wounds, you physically aren't who you were seven years ago, but what happens when you find that everything you are, and were, is still with you, somewhere, just under the surface, the right stimulus able to unearth ANY of it? I know I don't think of myself as the same person I was before college, but I have his memories. (1/4)
As in a space-time graph, there are points when I can look back and see the twisting roil of my path through the world, trace it back and pick up any point and KNOW it's all continuous, as much as the identity now is several singularities away from then. Nothing is lost; my triumph, my failure, my wisdom, my foolishness, my self now can see the one in the past... (2/4)
...but in the mindset that steps into the blood's memory, there is no judgement, there is only knowledge, the grand association of a life, or many, all adding to now. All I've ever been will me with me always, and it does make me what I am. And, more than that, it's a unique view on a portion of reality, and for that, it's priceless. (3/4)
@indi @forestservice That seems solidly how I view it from a personal perspective too. Thank you for sharing though.