Last night, late… in the deepest part of night, in quiet reverie, I was listening to Alan Watts. Earlier in the evening, I had a fairly dogmatic conversation in which I denounced all language, belief and thought, and even life itself, as meaningless,  valueless and useless. I wondered if I had come on too strong and maybe offended a tender soul.

So, here I was, awake… looking to Watts to sooth my soul. Since he is a profound thinker with a  broad perspective and wide knowledge, I can count on him to help me find my way out of my darkest contemplation. These are not dark in the sense that they are negative but come when looking at things squarely without fear no matter how far from comfort I go. Eventually, I fell asleep to the sound of wisdom emanating from a very wise heart with my conscience greatly assuaged.

I woke up thinking: so this life we’re living is an illusion. it is just a dream. I can live with that. I have found that this idea resonates somewhere within me. I have no idea whether it is a/the truth or not. Being very post-post modernist leaning, truth and such words hold little meaning for me.

My lifetime of experience in this body, in this place, at this time, began almost 68 years ago… longer if I count from the time Dad’s sperm penetrated Mom’s specific egg that made me. Since that time, moment by moment, I’ve been subject to the experiences of this dream, the pain, the pleasure, be it physical, mental and/or psychological.

There exists within me memory of my life (this I know because they are a part of my experience) and each and every memory affects the present (whether or not my past experience affects my future, I am yet to confirm since I never get to the future). The physical part of my existence is the most obvious because of the evidence; these are things I can prove. These, neither you nor I can deny: my weight, (heredity, too much food?), my weak arm (the consequence of polio), the scars speak to the life I have lived. Harder to reach, confirm or prove are the memories that are  ephemeral; not concrete… emotional and psychological but show up unwarranted, like it or not. This can be shown by asking at least two people to share their experience of the same event. Often the memories vary in a broad range. Some of our memories are good and bring joy and contentment and some are bad and continue to weigh us down until the day that we lay down for good; even what happened to us five minutes ago continues on with us until the desintegration of this form,  beginning point: conception, end point: the complete dissipation of this physical form.

Now, we don’t… can’t know what happens to the energy, or call it spirit if you will, after we are no longer in a shape to contain that energy. But, while we’re here, we are this one person in this one body with identifying memory of ourselves. This is all we have. Who we are in this present moment, in this physical form, is the accumulation of all that we have been and done from inception… the sounds and feelings in the womb, the abundance or lack of familial closeness, friendships and loneliness, hatred, fear, jealousy, excitement, intoxication,  fullness and emptiness, joy, sexual pleasure or pain, even bliss.

Because of technology, we have been increasingly able to record memory that endures for longer and longer periods of time. Beginning with drawing in dirt, in sand, on stone, in clay, on wood and leaves and paper and so forth and eventually on to the development of recorded language,  writing and the ability to read, and later still, to photography and moving images, film, animation… until we come up to the present day where there is a camera and/or audio device in practically every hand.

So what I’m thinking is…  so what if it is all a dream? Yesterday is gone, the very last minute is gone, the last breath we took is over… it’s all slipping by at a rapid rate… it seems like an increasingly rapid rate but the memories remain in our bodies, our minds, our psyches and they affect profoundly the present moment, how we face or are incapable of facing fear, whether or not we are communicative or are withdrawn in relationships, whether or not we have physical capacity or are disabled, whether or not we can reproduce one of our own kind and raise another conscious human being… all of this we carry with us until the end.

It is only our ability  to see or to awaken to the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, there is something that exists before  this form is created by the coming together of the parts of two other forms like ourselves. Does it exist after this one  body, made of not very durable stuff, disintegrates into the earth? Suppose then that the memories, be they pleasant or painful, do not have to negatively affect our time here in the physical and perhaps we don’t need to forget our experiences in order to live an enlightened existence. Imagine then that we can embrace our experiences to date and continue to live daily, enhanced by the pain and pleasure, knowing how transient life in this one body of water and dust is.

So trying to reject the memories seems fruitless. It seems right to live fully, embracing the entire experience from beginning to end. What does it matter that we are living a dream? It is our dream for now and soon will end. Really, what difference does any of it make?