Memory & Knowledge

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” William Faulkner, Light in August

"From a lifetime, how you recall such a thing? The truth is you don't exactly. But you think you do, and you might have. At this stage that's a good enough. Main point is, it seems to me every life had a few gleaming times when things were brighter, more intense and urgent, had more life in them, I suppose.” Niall Williams, This is Happiness

"If your mind is empty, it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few." Suzuki-Roshi

“When seeking to expand our knowledge for the sake of gratifying our passion for power, the world turns out to be alien and weird; while the knowledge we acquire in our yearning to invoke appreciation is a way of discovering our unison with things. With information we are alone; in appreciation we are with all things.” Abraham Isaac Heschel, The Philosophy of Religion

Photo by Svyatoslav Teslyak on Unsplash

Musings

This pairing is a bit more like a Rubik Cube—a multi-dimensional combination of literary and spiritual offerings. However, what has piqued my curiosity is there is no problem to solve nor can speed and alacrity offer much respite between these quotes. Rather, questions, like portals seem be coming into view. If only my mind was empty…

• How does one loosen the grip of the dictum, never forget? Should some memories be allowed to become compost?

• What if the stories we were told, were not exactly true, but true enough? Where is the threshold between a shared truth and the bright, gleaming times filled with possibilities?

• How does ‘With information we are alone; in appreciation we are with all things,’ land with you in these times of the endless, unfiltered, unverified, unrelenting flood of words and images?