The contents of consciousness |
About the fickleness of memory:
Walking through the forest on a rainy day on my completed trail network thinking about the early days of planning the trails and constructing them. Late in the process I happened upon the idea of putting out plastic Adirondack chairs everywhere.
There is one chair that was there for quite a while before the others; at first I thought it was the one given to us by friends and the one that started the whole chairs-in-the-forest idea. But that chair had a spot on the armrest where the color was worn through, and the "early" chair is not that chair.
At the time all this was happening, bit by bit, all these details were in the forefront of my memory. I could have recited which batch of chairs I got when, and where I purchased them, and which trails I finished first, and the details of how hard it was to blaze each trail with all the tools I used, and etc, etc, etc.
But now, looking back, many of these details from my memory have vanished. All these experiences and memories of the time were part of my life, of what I was, of who I was and what I did with my time.
But now, my conscious reality is constructed with new memories, new recent experiences, new feelings of being. I've adapted my "me-ness" to the new circumstances and don't notice the changes except upon occasional reflection.
"All things must pass, all things must pass away." (George Harrison)