Ever since I've graduated from BYU, I've thought of returning to Graduate School. There is always one thing looming over your mind though, at the thought of graduating from a Grad School: What in the world will I/should I write a thesis on?
For a while now I've had a suspicion that I would somehow write a thesis on MEMORY. To borrow Soren Kierkegaard's phrasology: The Concept of Memory...
Now, why I started thinking about this tonight (not that a single moment passes, without me thinking about this in some way, shape, or form) is because of something that my dear-old dad just said to me. And, mind you, I have known that the human memory and the Holy Ghost were in some way bound together.
He said that: "Righteousness rewards with memories." Meaning that when you are being righteous, you are rewarded with an increase in your memory; both in capacity to remember more things--both in the future, but also being able to rember more things from the past (and he actually was talking apecifically about being able to "remember things" almost innately; like when you teach someone the Gospel and they say something like, "I've always believed that" and it was probably the first and only time they'd heard it spoken or communicated to them.
I know that it goes beyond that though... Sure, it applies to "Gospel-Truth-memories", such as The Plan of Salvation, but also about memories of pure TRUTH--the way that it's easier to remember a theorum that is based on logic or a fact-that- just-rings-true, than it is remember a lie or even just a idle fact... It's because the HOLY GHOST ALWAYS helps you (and when I say, "you", I mean everyone or a 3rd person singular non-specific "one") to remember that you were once taught or heard that TRUTH before.
That last sentence just made me think of Plato and his "world of ideas" from where the gods teach us all things. THANKS memory! Maybe my ideas aren't original at all, but better, in that: they're timeless!!!
The Holy Ghost ideas bring something more to light though, than silly old "gods" like has been said.
ALSO! Another thing that my dad said was that, the Holy Ghost and the memories that you're given (or that are offered to you...) put you in a whole new frame of reference. From that whole new perspective on things (your whole-new-frame-of-reference) you are NOW in a position to think of everything in a wholly new and different way and, therefore, you are in a new postiion to remember a whole NEW set of things. Those whole-new-sets will simply spawn other things until you combine that with the things you have learned in the past (whether you remember learning those things or not, you now have full-access to them in memories...) and all things will have "become one" (which is another idea from Plato).
I love when I come across an idea that gets me excited!!! It's like, I remember this truth from somewhere else! See, my own writing is just further evidence that this idea is PURE TRUTH!
JPS
I like that. I think our mind stores everything we have ever seen or heard or experienced and they will be unlocked at some point. It is important to fill our minds with goodness, truth, light, virtue, etc.
ReplyDeleteIf your experience with a thesis is like mine, you may not have a great deal of choice since you work under someone else with research goals.