It's easy to enjoy hanging around familiar people, those few or many with whom we share common events, the ones who have the same memories set off by the same triggers. They bring a special richness to our lives, even the ones with whom the memories might not be so bright, the experiences not so merry. Their very familiarity, the comfort we find in having them in our background, lends a special depth to our lives.
Much the same is true, it feels, of our thoughts. The ones we feel a certain comfort with, the ones that help give us our very sense of place, be they positive or negative. WE, as individuals, are infinitely more a reflection of our thoughts than of our bodies. Infinitely. Especially the ones that we cozy up to, whether fair or foul. Thought - rooted in words - is what we attach to experiences, giving them residence in our mind.
The rub is that memory is, by its very nature, selective. It's faulty. I once showed my oldest brother a family picture I'd drawn at age 8 or 9. I pointed out different things about it that were unexpected. He asked me what I thought each meant, and each time I answered the same way, "I don't try to interpret what I meant, because the one thing I know for sure is that I would be wrong. I just find it interesting." That really bothered him. If I found the different things interesting, then I should attach some specific meaning to them; he found my refusal downright irksome.
Even then, 8 or 9 years ago, something deep down inside of me knew the pitfalls of thought & memory. As cozy as they feel, they are almost invariably wrong, wildly off-kilter from the unknown, now (maybe always) unknowable reality.
Was it several years ago that I read that the reason humans - particularly Americans - tend to assume things is because we like to feel that we know, even when we don't? There abouts. Hence, the lure of assumption, which gives at least the illusion of knowing.
Assumptions are all about words v. sensing, about tagging manageable, limited & limiting labels to often unmanageable events, circumstances, situations. Of all the human actions, fewer give us an unrealistic sense of cozy than assumption.
Which leads me to one of the scariest things a human can do - drop out of limiting thought & into simple sensation, just being. Ponder it - since we could first listen, even before we could talk, most of us were trained to suspend our sensing and embrace words. From our earliest interactions, too many people are told that what they're sensing is false & that what words depict - however far it is from the reality they've felt & seen - is correct. We so keenly ache for the cozy rather than the true.
None of which changes the core reality that one of the most important things we can do for ourselves & others is to step away from the cozy, the comfortable, the familiar stories, and just let ourselves experience, sense, feel whatever is at this moment. Just let it be.
Was it several years ago that I read that the reason humans - particularly Americans - tend to assume things is because we like to feel that we know, even when we don't? There abouts. Hence, the lure of assumption, which gives at least the illusion of knowing.
Assumptions are all about words v. sensing, about tagging manageable, limited & limiting labels to often unmanageable events, circumstances, situations. Of all the human actions, fewer give us an unrealistic sense of cozy than assumption.
Which leads me to one of the scariest things a human can do - drop out of limiting thought & into simple sensation, just being. Ponder it - since we could first listen, even before we could talk, most of us were trained to suspend our sensing and embrace words. From our earliest interactions, too many people are told that what they're sensing is false & that what words depict - however far it is from the reality they've felt & seen - is correct. We so keenly ache for the cozy rather than the true.
None of which changes the core reality that one of the most important things we can do for ourselves & others is to step away from the cozy, the comfortable, the familiar stories, and just let ourselves experience, sense, feel whatever is at this moment. Just let it be.
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