Does the past matter?

The impetus for this article was provided by the discrepancy stemming from the previous article between me and Kyle (whom I am grateful to for being the most sincere, honest, and critical reader I could ask for) about the importance of the past. But it’s also an issue that I constantly face in my political/cultural/religious/historical/societal studies, as well as a deeply personal issue. But before I start, let me just say this is probably the last article I write for a while since school is now in full swing and I have two research projects that I don’t know how I’m going to finish on time. One concerns a paper on Tariq Ramadan (perhaps the most important European Muslim intellectual today) and the other is about Islam in Hungary. Besides these two massive projects, I have several other papers to write, many books to read and, of course, playing hockey for Georgetown. But enough of my personal life, lets talk about the past.

How important is it to remember one’s past? Is it merely an accessory to be aware of or deisregarded depending on the circumstance? Is it a tool of convenience that can be brought forth to accentuate a particular story and event and hidden if it is particularly embarrassing or damaging to the individual? Is the past something permanent and concrete or does it change when new events and new attitudes come forth?

I read an interesting article the other day that talked about an individual’s experience with a concussion where he was unable to remember conversations as soon as they were over, lost track of names and addresses, and would suddenly find himself on the street or subway without any idea where he was or where he was heading. Of course, we all forget things: we've all had the experience of walking into the kitchen and then losing track of why we came, or fumbling for the name of someone we've met a dozen times. But this was different. This was a complete erasure of linear time. Every moment was new, without history, and grounded in the past only by the detailed notes he kept for himself. Think of the film Memento.

Now the really interesting part of this story is that this man claims that because he was unlikely to remember the meal, conversation, or film that he was enjoying, he was freer to enjoy these pleasures more by truly living in the moment. He had been skeptical, uptight, and nervous, but now he preformed poetry at slams, danced at bonfires in the desert, and traveled to new countries on a whim. Without memory, he glided from moment to moment with everything always being a complete surprise. He had no choice but to trust everything around him which he described as “relaxing.”

Undoubtedly, this sounds extremely liberating and anyone could therefore agree that inhibition is a bad thing. It’s better to eliminate self-consciousness if it weighs you down right? Better to forget weaknesses, imperfections and guilt because they are nothing but an impediment to happiness.

But the man’s story is not over.

After six months the symptoms of permanent amnesia wore off and he returned to “his old self.” Except “he” was no longer there. In the six months, many things changed. He had quit his job, his girlfriend left him, and he came out of the closet. He couldn’t remember anything that happened during that six month period.

Now it’s obvious from the first part of his story that the temporary amnesia helped him to be happy in ways he never could have been otherwise. Furthermore, it fundamentally transformed his personality and character, for the better he admits. But then he says something really shocking: the loss of his memory was really a loss of his identity. The memories, flavors, and formative experiences that made up his current identity were gone, and therefore he had nothing to root his current preferences, inclinations, and self in. True, he has a better finished product and admits he is happier than before the concussion. But the inability to remember his experiences has him admitting in the end that given the choice, he would reverse everything that had happened.

I think I can understand why. Have you ever played a game and lost? Have you ever tried to build something and failed? Of course, we all have. The point is: the path towards the finish line is more important than the result itself, otherwise engaging in activity without a guarantee of success would be absurd and we are, for the most part, rational individuals. The experience has value in and of itself, and is therefore, more important than the result itself. Any Olympian would agree with me. Would you not run a marathon if you couldn’t be first? Would you not engage in activity if you weren’t guaranteed success?

Many wonderful memories of mine have arisen from failure and losses. Even from humiliation and embarrassment, I can often look back and laugh. This is why being without memory, to me, is more than mere forgetfulness: it is being set adrift on an eternal present, without trajectory or history. This is why the past is important. Mystics from around the world will say a temporary suspension of memory, and of thought, allows for “peak experiences.” Yet in every wisdom tradition that I know of, there is also a return. The Zen monk comes back to the marketplace; Moses descends from the mountain; Christ emerges from the wilderness. Without memory, there may be beauty and happiness, but there is no coherence. There are episodes, but no continuous narrative. Pure moments of being may be the closest we come to enlightenment. But then, where is the telling of the story?

Nosce te ipsum - A Treatise on Identity

In case you don't know Latin or the famous quote, Nosce te ipsum means "know thyself." Since my good friend Raskolnikov has decided to write about “the ripening of identity,” I thought I should explore this topic further in a sociological framework by asking two important questions:

1. what comprises one’s identity
2. why is identity important?

First of all, a person’s identity is comprised of two elements: their past and their present. The past includes genealogy, upbringing, hometown, prior associations, etc. Essentially everything in the person’s past: the smells in the kitchen, what grew in their backyard, what church they went to, what names they were called, who their friends were, etc. Even if they don’t believe, practice, or associate with any of those things that they used to, those elements are still a part of them because they may adversely, if not positively, affect them, with or without the person knowing it at all.

Secondly, what the person currently believes and practices comprises the second element of a person’s identity. After all, if someone was born in New York City as a Jew but moved to Pakistan and became a Muslim, then the current identity is more salient than the former, even though the past still will always influence and shadow the current. But nonetheless, current associations, practices, and beliefs are an essential determining factor in an individual’s identity.

But why is any of this important? Why should anyone “identify” with monikers and labels to begin with? Isn’t any such label insufficient in truly explaining who one is? Can even an autobiography fully explain an individual? Maybe not. Maybe words cannot completely describe someone. Maybe words, with pictures and video cannot fully describe someone. Maybe even personally knowing that person and being their best friend cannot completely pin point their identity to do them justice. This is because only the individual in their own mind can be completely sure of who they are.

Labeling others and assigning identity to others is useless and perhaps even destructive because it’s inherently incomplete and dishonest. The only person anyone will ever completely understand is themselves, because they are in immediate awareness of their past, present, and future plans. I didn’t include future as one of the elements in determining identity because I see that as just words without action. Projection of an action doesn’t make an individual, unless they are characterized by constant babble and no action. But generally we all have plans, but we don’t become them until we actually execute them. My point is that actions, not words, make an individual.

So then, why is it important to know yourself? Why should you grill yourself with difficult questions about who you really are? Where you come from? What you believe in? What you should do with your life?

Identity has two sides to it: it can be tool of enslavement, or a tool of liberation. If you choose to ignore the fundamental elements that make up your existence by ignoring your past, rejecting purpose and beliefs, and ignoring the world around you, you become a slave to identity because others will determine it for you. Not knowing or ignoring these things will cause an unnatural dependence on others. For happiness, wealth, and all substance; you will always be borrowing someone else’s standard of living and subscribing to someone else’s beliefs. Whether it’s your parents, your boss, your lover, your friends, or whatever subculture you belong to. Being a pawn in someone else’s game is an identity, albeit not your own. However, being a pawn does give you the comfort of having established positions and standards that have been created by someone else so you don’t need to think for yourself. You know if you just move eight spaces forward you’ll get the chance to be a queen or any other piece you want. Just go to law school, become a lawyer, and you’ll make money and that equals happiness, right? But what about the perils that lie along that set path? Are you guaranteed success? What if you never make it to the end? Does that mean happiness was never achieved? Could it be that a life was actually wasted by conforming to someone else’s game?

Now consider the alternative of knowing one’s identity as being a tool of liberation. You stand up from the game that is set before you, knock the board with all its pieces off, and design your own game. Let it be hopscotch. Let it be jogging. Whatever game you design, as long as it is completely your design, you will always score points. You will always win. You will always be happy. Because if you aren’t, you can always change the rules or change the game all together. The point is: you are in control. You set the rules and you determine the standard. Only by creating your own game, which occurs after the laborious process of truly knowing your own identity, knowing what made you, and knowing what you want, can you be free. And only when you are free can you be truly happy.

I’m sure we all have something in our past, or something about ourselves that we aren’t particularly fond of. I’m sure of that because I’m certain that no one living is perfect. What I’m saying is that instead of hiding it, or ignoring it, or rejecting it, embrace it. It is who you are. It’s a part of your identity. The sooner you come to know it and accept it, the sooner you can improve on it, or work on it, or hell, even increase it.

So how can you know who you really are? Well, start by thinking about your past. Think of hidden memories and talk to family members or old friends about them. Create art – either by writing, taking pictures, drawing, or whatever medium best expresses some event or quality about you. Stop your daily routine by doing something completely new and spontaneous once a day or once a week. Go travel to a foreign country. Or just go to the next state over if you’ve never even done that. Meet someone entirely new and go to lunch with them. Read the book you’ve always wanted to. Find out about a foreign religion. Eat the thing you’ve avoided your whole life. My point: you need to get out of your box in order to see and know what is inside it. And again, why is it important to know what’s in your box, to know who you really are? Because then you can know how to change yourself and the world around you. And that is the key to happiness.

A Knife in my Back

You were a knife in my back
painful,
constricting,
out of reach.
Perhaps my own sadism enjoyed it at times.
Perhaps the debilitation satiated me.
However, if I could just have reached the handle at times,
just to reposition the blade,
We could still be living symbiotically.

But then you left me,
and you took your bloody knife with you.
It hurt more than when you thrust it in,
with all its pestilence and disease-ridden love.
For it tore pieces of my flesh with it,
and it drained my blood.
Although I am happy now that it’s gone,
the scar will always be there,
and I’m afraid the wound is infected.

(I promise I won't post anymore depressing poetry. I'm as sick of it as you must be. Next week it's back to substantive matters we can all discuss. Well, maybe.)

Hungry?

Grief made a meal for me once.
Her reputation being legendary,
I both feared and anticipated what she lay before me.
I sat in the kitchen and watched her cook.
She was jarring as she banged pots,
Rattled her intrusive golden ladle.
The aroma was something more of a stench-decay and broccoli.
She invited me to the table and served me with heart-breaking solemnity.
Before me was placed a gold-plated bowl, golden flatware, and linen napkins.
Her face was serene.
She was devastatingly quit as she poured her broth into my bowl.
I watched the brownish slog fall in clumps.
There was the smell again – decay, broccoli.
“Do I have to eat this?” I asked her.
Her reply a silent smile, a deafening affirmation.
I spooned the gruel into my mouth.
It was hard to swallow. It stuck. It burned.
I did not know if I should chew it or let it slide down my throat.
I wanted to stop.
Grief checked on me.
It was bitter to swallow. Truly, truly, bitter.
A bowlful of experience that has stuck to my ribs and nourished me since.