Memory and foresight

I SUPPOSE we did some reviewing and forecasting during the New Year celebration. That’s what is expected. A little of looking back and of looking forward.

Actually we need to do this all the time, and we need to do it well. We have to be wary of influences that tend to tie us down to the present alone, making us unmindful of the past and of the future, and especially of eternity.

The growing cases of Alzheimer’s disease and of autism may just reflect a trend of self-absorption gripping many people these days. You see them plugged to their mp3s, computers, etc., veritably establishing their own parallel realities, with themselves as their own suns around whom everything else revolves.

Of late, I’ve been hearing some persons complain that we as a people seem to be short of memory. I’ve taken that lament with a grain of salt, though I’m also sure there are also grains of truth contained in it.

I understand what they mean. When people do not cultivate their memory, they tend to have a shallow culture, one that is stuck in the surface and the appearances, but hardly any soul that serves as its principle of life and unity.

The other day also, some youngsters when asked what kind of movies they like to see, proudly replied, the ones that don’t require thinking. Sorry, but in my calculation, that can only mean violence-and-sex movies. Many are now averse to use their spiritual faculties. They’re hooked on the purely carnal.

The truth is we need to work out our memory and our foresight. These are an integral part of our human condition. We are meant to remember the past and to construct the future. More, we are meant to work for our eternity. We cannot ignore this duty. This is part of our being persons, with subjectivity.

But we have to understand that the foundation of our memory and our foresight cannot be other than God. It cannot be our own selves alone, our own ideas, our own preferences, or our own ideologies and philosophies, no matter how helpful and indispensable they are.

God is the source, measure, pattern and goal of reality. We are supposed only to reflect and correspond to the will of God. We did not generate our own selves, much less, the world we live in. God did it all, my dear.

Thus, we need to develop the basic attitude of being reflective, even contemplative, and at the same time, of being active and cooperative. These two sets should go together, like the two sides of the same coin.

Our creativity and originality can never be absolute. They cannot fly or float in a vacuum. They require a reference point, an environment, and that reference can ultimately be God, not something of our own making, though we are capable of producing one, at least for a while.

We have to understand that our sense of freedom should coincide with our sense of obedience and docility to God’s will in the end. Unless we realize this and try to achieve this, we might be having some blast of an adventure in life, but for sure we would be going nowhere.

No, one set of qualities without the other results in some anomaly. We can easily fall into the irregularity of quietism and indifference on the one the hand, and of activism on the other. The two should be together, never decoupled.

With God as the constant and ultimate reference point, and with the basic attitude of humility, obedience and reflectiveness, we can go far in rectifying and enriching our memory, and in clarifying what is truly essential to guide us into the future. Our foresight would take wing.

We precisely would know how to resolve past troubles, ultimately reconciling us with God and with others, even if there are still items that need to be solved. This is how our memory is cleaned and put to its proper condition so we would be filled with nothing other than sentiments of gratitude and fulfillment.

We also would know how to look at the future, learning how to judge the variable elements that come along the way, since we already know our constants—our beginning, our end, our pattern, our source of energy, etc.

We have to work on our memory and foresight! This is not optional task. It’s a must for all of us.