Simply the Best

 

Being materialists, we are inclined to think of memories as not being a real. Of course they are not material: but consider the possibility that the memory is a real, objectively existing place, where everything goes and stays when it is not present to our senses. Because, literally, we know that this is so. Nothing actually fades from memory; its existence is not dependent on our consciousness of it, on our perceiving it. This is what objective existence means. 

Yes, we may for the moment not remember. But we know that every memory is still there, and can arise again to consciousness unpredictably at any moment—perhaps inspired by the smell of lilacs, a tune on the radio, or the taste of a madeleine.

Can we then also remember things that happened to someone else? 

Why not, since memories are objective? And this could explain the many uncanny reports of remembering “past lives,” and the many apparently collective memories described by Carl Jung, which he calls the “collective unconscious.” The evidence is there; we only ignore it because it does not fit our prejudices.

We also know that people we remember can do things we do not will them to do, or that we do not expect. In dreams, for example; or in our waking fantasies. So in the case of remembered people, their consciousness, their will, also survives.

Most cultures have thought this. This is the foundation of their belief in an afterlife. In Korea, there is a mudang who channels the soul of Douglas MacArthur. She even has the corn cob pipe. MacArthur is not gone; he lives in memory, and occasionally speaks through her.

Properly speaking, all memories are immortal. They are in some vast storehouse somewhere. But there are actually two things we call “memory.” There is this storehouse, and there is our ability to recall items from it. If someone is not recalled easily, their existence in memory is lacking in energy. They are indistinct and wraith-like: literally starved for attention.

Some people, by the force of their personality or their talents, are uniquely memorable. They are not necessarily good people; just memorable people. And these are the ones Chinese Taoism, or Korean shamanism, will call “Immortals.”

This is why people keep thinking they see Elvis at the drug store, or Hitler in hotels in Brazil. They are too memorable to fade from immediate consciousness. 

This is why Roman emperors were commonly declared gods at death, and given sacrifices. This is why the Greek gods demand sacrifices. This is why the Chinese burn paper gifts for their ancestors, and put food at their graves. Our remembering them is their food.

I suspect that Tina Turner is immortal in this sense.