Strangely enough...

Now, strangely enough, whilst pretending to be at work earlier today, The Beard had an idea of something to write on here, but as is the way of these things by the time i could pull over and make notes I'd forgotten it all anyway, so didn't bother... so it was probably something important and earth shattering.... but that may not be a bad thing... sometimes it seems that shattering the earth may just be the solution.. but I digress.... suddenly remembering where I was has taken me to the vagaries of that strange brainfellow memory, and its exactitude, or lack of it... I've probably written of this elsewhere, but I don't remember clearly..but memory isnot an exact science.. peopel tend to think of memory as some form of library, full of unchanging exact records of the past.. but looked at objectively, we can see that that is not so.... memory is very subjective, and fleeting.. the book analogy falls down quite readily.. if I want t find a fact in a book, I go to te book, look in the index, turn to the page.. but memory.. there is no easily found book, no internal reference.. in fact, often the more we attempt to remember something, the further away the memory is.. its like not knowing which book to go to and finding all the pages stuck together, and in a foreign language.. for instance, I'm often struck by the vague memory that once I knew a synonym for Hebrew that was in very common usage, and began with K....but as no one else does, it would seem I must discard that memory.. along with the memory of a seventh great ape (as well as the gorilla, orang, gibbon (not great, i know) Bonobo, Chimp and man...) and that of an extra big cat.. (lion, tiger, leopard, snow leopard and jaguar are all there... and knowing the puma to be a small cat(honest.. its felis not panthera!) what was the other...) Some american scientis (if I remember correctly!) did an experiment... on the day of the Kennedy assassination he asked what several of his students were doing.. and he recorded what they said..... then a few months (or possibly years) later, he asked thenm again.. each could remember vividly what they were up to when they heard he news.. it was like it was only yesterday... and eighty percent of them gave totally different answers to their original ones.. now, this may not seem like a big thing.. and maybe its not.. but we do have a problem.. if we can experience life and truth only through our perceptions of that life, then our memories become truth to us... and if our memories are fallible, then our past alters... my personal past, objectively looked at contains many of the same events as that of my friends.. but if each of us remembers that past differently, then which of those is the true past???? Did my past happen as I believe it to or not.. and as our reactions to present and future events are based in some way on what we have learned from our past, then how can we be sure that what we think we have earned is in fact what we did learn.... as an example.. \i met a man the other day who remembered me from high school.. he knew my name, and shared some anecdotes about our schooldays together.. I remembered a lot of them happening to me.. so what, you say?? well, I'll tell you, so long as you say please.... well.. we went to different high schools, and didn't meet up till college.... but we both remember the said events happening at high school, and I'm very sure that some of them did not happen a t college.... so, who was right? me, or him?? Am i living under the delusion that i went to a different school? Where was i? I forgot the point that I was making.. I said if i was smart that I would save up for a piece of string.. damn.. sorry... forgot for a moment that I'm not They Might Be Giants.... its happened before, but never mind.. suffice it to say, if its true that alltime is concurrent and eternal, and that it only seems to pass due to the inability of our nervous systems to comprehend it in its entirety, then we're probably alright.... if not.. well, at least you can breathe a sigh of relief that I haven't brought in Schrodinger's cat and the trousers of time.. which is a relief to all concerned.. so until we all remember waht we were going to say, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!