amazingly after finishing off a 25 page paper which I struggled over I find nothing more soothing than getting back at the old blog. I guess its like drinking off a hangover in a way (though I have never understood how this works), to get over the pain of all that writing I need some writing to cure the pain...anyway next up a little Plato.
In my paper about the construction of memory and how we remember or what we even call remembering I came upon an interesting idea by Plato. Let me distill. I bet you already know it, even if you think you don't. Let me explain. Plato asserted that nothing new was ever learned during life. Humans for him were born knowing everything of significance. This original knowledge is lost over time and events though so that when we think we are "learning" we are actually recalling some original truth which we had forgot without forgetting. A little out there maybe but I think Plato might be on to something, he was a pretty smart guy after all...
This idea is optimistic which might be why I like it so much. The truth is there. We know it. It exists inside of us but we need to simply "learn" it anew. What this means is that remembering is in a sense returning to our original "all knowing" self. Our capacity for knowledge is already there, we just need to pull back the curtain of life a bit to find out what we have forgot. Sometimes we get so caught up in every day, in feeling like we need to learn it all. What we need maybe is to stop and listen, learning in this sense may not be of the reading the books sort but more of a stopping to listen to the void sort. If deep within us lies the knowledge we seek rather than looking externally maybe we should also leave some time to turn inward. Savor those moments of silence. Take the time to listen to the knowledge within you that think you do not possess. Maybe this is what instinct is. Or following your gut. Or following your heart. Either way you cut it I like the idea that I once had the answers but I need to simply just recall what I already knew. This is all experience is then. Slowly through the gradual wearing of time we begin to see, begin to realize and begin to feel like we actually do know something. I don't know how much sense that makes, but the pain of writing has left and the joy of sleeping has quickly descended upon me. Back with more philosophical ramblings from after a brief snowboard trip to Whistler BC where I will hopefully recover some of that ease on the snowboard that i once knew but feel I have forgotten. thanks to Plato though I now know, its there, always has been. just need to peel back a few layers of experience and let it emerge. hopefully ill be thinking my next thoughts deep in the middle of a big powder turn or maybe i wont be thinking at all. ill just be living. yeah living the moment that sounds pretty good right now!
