I once spoke about my memories using time-based constructs. Memories were “old”, from “long ago”, or “recent”. My “earliest memories” were associated with my childhood. I accepted they were incomplete impressions of a past I had experienced but is no more. I also accepted that other people who were part of those remembered moments exist somewhere else in this world and carry different impressions of the same events.
My sensation of memory contradicts my experience because memory is one of the distorting effects of my Illness. My Illness thrives in a constellation of imaginary constructs in which I am a single person in a larger world with billions of others all experiencing more or less the same thing. In this construct, we are all moving through a linear, time-based existence in which the past is forever gone and the future is always coming.
But that is all a distortion. There is only an unending now, and all of existence is contained within it. There are no unreachable manifestations in existence beyond my direct and actual experience in my moment. My direct experience in my moment is the totality of existence, without exception. And most prominently, the totality of existence originates “within me” and emanates outward, projecting the “world full of other people” onto the walls of my inner being.
Then what are my “memories of the past”? And what are my “imaginings of the future”? They are all types of conceptual constructs that occur only in my upper secondself (around my head). Like my bodily sensations and feelings which are produced within my middle and lower secondself, they are secondself structures that form a tightly-integrated layer around my thirdself. Like connective tissue, they form strong bonds with my thirdself, manifesting as relationships, longings, attractions, desires, values, and more. Memories from the root system within my secondself, which develop into the branching growth of my thirdself.
The solution to this conceptual challenge lies in re-characterizing my moment by comparing what I know and experience to what I can only imagine. The distortion lies in the imaginary.
- I only ever experience my moment as an unending now.
- The apparent changes in my moment lead me to imagine that one moment differs from the next, and all previous moments left impressions I call “memories”.
Although these two seem to contradict one another, the more potent of the two is my direct experience of an unending moment. I cannot deny that, however, I can change my interpretation of the second and reveal the outlines of Distortion.
I know there is only this moment, and the totality of existence is the sum of it. To conceptualize this I must release the notion that any form I conceive or perceive persists in that same form regardless of my observation of it. For example, in uniself, I assume that my first car — a 70s-era Chevette — persists in its physical form somewhere. Perhaps rusted in someone’s garage.
But since the foundation of truth is my experience, the idea that my Chevette exists somewhere independent of my observation of it runs contrary to truth. My memories are not impressions of events that happened in an untouchable past, but rather they are constructs at the deeper level of the root system of my moment. My memories of childhood are not residual impressions of events that occurred decades ago, but rather emanating features at the bottom of my moment. My mistaken belief that they occurred in the past can be reconceptualized as occurring deep in my emanation.
Upon awakening, my existential root system rebuilds itself, starting with the deepest roots of my experience: my oldest memories. As I awaken into my illness, my roots grow longer, deeper, and stronger, which I sense as memories. The totality of existence is within my moment, and the appearance of change is the shimmering of my emanation.
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