The great thing about life is that it’s unedited.
Mostly…Committing short-term memories to long-term memory is a predominantly unconscious process. What we call upon as ‘our past’ is only ever an edited highlights reel. That the foundations of our character rest on an abridged narrative should give us pause for thought. Especially when we consider that what we determine as important or trivial is informed by whatever character it is we happen to be playing. This then influences how we subconsciously reconstruct our personal narrative. Which affects our character. You see the loop. On and on it goes.
This cycle has found greater tangibility within the global virtual community. The rise of social media and the good old ‘algorithm’ have turned the unconscious act of self-editing into a very conscious one - what photos we post, what comments we compose, which viewpoints we share… We constantly preen and prune at the false idol of our self-image, trapped in online echo chambers.
The virtual community is swift to judge. But if awareness of the self-editing cycle teaches us anything, it’s that no person trapped within it is a wholly equitable judge. The Hebrew for ‘sin’ is khata - literally meaning ‘to miss the mark’. Blind to individual biases, proudly propping up idols we make in our own image, we should be careful to assess our true motives when we find ourselves judging. And, likewise, we should obsess less on how quickly others may judge us.
In the Christian tradition, we appeal to the Spirit to set our aim true; to dredge up that of ourselves we’d sooner edit out, that we may acknowledge it, turn our back on it, and walk gratefully into the Light of the only authority that can judge us without proclivity.
Bradley Fear
Wellington Quaker Meeting
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