First Blog

The human mind seeks familiarity not because it is wise, but because it is comfortable. Whether we dwell in fear, longing, pride, or sorrow, once we become accustomed to a certain state, we tend to return to it. Familiarity becomes a refuge, regardless of whether it nourishes or diminishes us. The mind does not ask:  Is this true? Is this good?  It asks:  Have I felt this before?  And if the answer is yes, it settles back into it, even if it brings suffering. Hence, we may revise the old maxim:  “Familiarity breeds comfort, not contempt.” States of mind, like all habits of being, become self-sustaining. The joyful tend toward joy. The bitter tend toward bitterness. Not because of fate, but because we live most often in the emotional rooms we’ve furnished for ourselves. Some people remain unhappy not because life denies them happiness, but because their minds have grown accustomed to unhappiness. It is what they know. It is what they return to. It becomes a quiet...

A memory is an event or object stored in your brain.   Memories are neither perceptive nor conceptive as these are more-or-less contemporary events.   Objects of the memory are therefore objects of the past.    The principle two types of memory are the acts of remembering and of recollection.   Recollection can be regarded as imperfect memory that singles out similarities with perhaps a large group of memories each having some commonality to the presence of event at hand.     In this note, we expand the idea of memory beyond remembering and recalling.   These are the more subtle memories we need and which allow us to survive and thrive. Instincts.   First, consider a new approach to instinct .   It is differentiated from the hard-wired instincts (discussed below).   It is discussed here as a aspect of possible forgotten memory.   It forms a type of memory in the sense that when an event occurs, there can result an “i...