On the Matter of Conditioning by “Past” Events.

On the Matter of Conditioning by “Past” Events.

 

The irrelevance of Memory as I have thus delineated it does NOT, however, negate the relevance of Conditioning by Past Events. In this circumstance, the word “Past” has a different context. Although, using verbal logic, the notion of being “influencedsby Past Occurrences” seems to contradict my thesis, it, upon closer examination, corroborates it.

 

Suppose that my father, whilst I was very young, criticized my writing as being unoriginal. Unconscious of the reason for my paranoia, I became excessively vigilant of hiding my writing from him. This would appear to suggest the relevance of Memory. Yet since the conditioning affected me Unconsciously and memories exist in Consciousness, Memory is of yet irrelevant.

 

Suppose that, one day, I become aware of the fact that I have probably been thus conditioned. This would suggest the relevance of Memory, because I have to remember the original insult in order to understand its current effect upon me. Yet this is a prime example of a situation wherein Neville has the Remembrall, not Malfoy: I am not CONTROLLING or MANIPULATING Memories in “Bad Faith”; THEY ARISE spontaneously BY VIRTUE OF the Will of the Unconscious, and their arisal and Relevance is momentary, as in the metaphor of the crater.

 

My original thesis serves to dissolve the illusion of a Platonic timeline “from” Past “through” Present “to” Future. This assertion stands in the face of Conditioning. To affirm that one has been Conditioned is actually to deny the illusion of Time and therefore Past as it is understood in the context of that illusion. This moment is seen to be no different from that moment wherein my father insulted me “many years ago”; it is the SAME moment. I cannot blame him in an attempt to renounce responsibility, in fairness. I cannot blame the Past for “causing” this event as though all authority rested in the abstract metaphysical region known as History. The authority rests Now, and it always has. I am empowered right NOW to overcome the conditioning that happened NOW. Yet should I misattribute the Cause of this Conditioning to the “past”, I should make appear irrelevant, in my mind, the true nature of this Cause, its nature being Present, not Past, and, by condemning it to the Metaphysical realm, renounce Responsibility for it.

 

Dm.A.A.