There has to be a big picture. That’s the first conclusion I can draw from the way time and individuality seem to work together.

It may not actually be a fascinating topic, but I find it endlessly educational.

For years I’ve watched makeovers on television without remembering an experience I had in junior high school. But one show I saw today triggered the memory of another show (which has also never called up this memory before), and all of a sudden I’m in the 7th grade, getting passed over for a makeover for local commercial. (FYI, my cheerleading squad was doing a spot for a hair salon, and I was going to be the hair makeover. Another one of the cheerleaders showed up that afternoon and they replaced me.) It made me a little bit sad. Not the right-now kind of sad, but the childhood pain kind. And I HAVE TO ASK. Why are experiences culumative?

It doesn’t make sense, right?

It’s all set up like a lifelong college program. You work and work, and never quite know what for. You’re just hoping it’s going to get you somewhere beneficial – somewhere that creates more independence for you, or more comfort for other people.

To be specific, years are like classes, and the information in every one builds on the stuff you learned in the last class. But it’s most likely the experience itself of having been in college for four years that gives you the capacity to understand your senior capstone course.

Why then would each person be an incomplete record of life? And if we are incomplete records, what is the purpose of giving us intense, temporary tastes of experience? And then, why build the entire structure of our lives and good fortune around the fall-where-it-may of each of our experiences, only to make them inaccessible once we can see clearly their far-reaching effects?

Why give me a memory of all the random misfortune I’ve had, and infer that it is due to my choices? I get to make choices, but I don’t get to plan my life. Proof of this lies in every failed plan I’ve ever made. If I am an incomplete record of the nature of a life, I cannot possibly be expected to make a right choice, ever. Because it is generally conceded that we can only truly know that which we have experienced. Why bother learning anything? All it can do is give you regret. It isn’t going to change your future; it’s only going to help you make a better plan. But as I said, I don’t get to plan my life. Other people aren’t going to benefit from my experiences – I cannot plan their lives, and I cannot transfer to them the kind of knowing that comes from experience. All I can do is give them a soft outline of what might have been a favorable outcome.

Given that my major frustration here seems to be the inability to know the future, it’s nice to think that my experiences might offer a psychic glimpse into the future of anyone seeking my advice.

But knowledge and good planning don’t control …anything, really. They make for a greater sense of security, which I KNOW is an illusion. I can’t prove to you that I know that, but it comes from my experiences.

Another positive effect of the setup of life as an individual is that some experiences ARE repeated across different lives. So if you and I have experienced the very same thing, we’ve got wonderful odds of knowing some of the same things, and this gives us greater opportunity for communication, exploration, and learning. Perhaps we could develop a close enough trust that we could somehow *know* one another’s experiences. Seems a little mystical, maybe? But I am not above mystical. I rather revel in it from time to time.

My identity is the unhappy beneficiary of my entire personal history. When I look back, all I can see is the negative. I don’t think that makes me a pessimist; I don’t think it’s even on the same page as that kind of label. The negative experiences have shaken me. They’ve caused me to become aware of my fragility, insecurity, and limits. In short, they’ve humbled me. And so every time I think of myself, I am humbled. I am fragile. I am insecure.

Why do my successes feel so temporary? I don’t think that’s an error in the *way I think* or any such self-empowering point of view. If I am to believe my peers, the feeling is too universally pervasive to be a sign of a personal fault. We just believe that we are to blame – because we are humbled by our memories of self.

I think the positive experiences might be lacking in power. I know for sure, they lack *staying* power. Feelings rarely last as long as we think they do. I think most feelings are surprisingly fleeting. It’s the memory and the effect of those feelings that gives them power, and I can think of very few positive feelings that have really made their mark.

That’s not to say there are none; they’ve been bold and abundant in my experience – they just haven’t been numerous. And their effect has been to calm me, to offer me a sense of security, and through their light, manage to outshine my constant regret. But I know they won’t last long enough to take care of me 24/7. And as cliche as it might sound – in that way, they also humble me.

So I suppose I am but a humble and incomplete record of the experience of living.

I think you ought to remember that next time you ask anything of yourself. We can plan to do just that. But will you follow through? Not likely. Will I? No.

So humility won’t change your life. Which seems to be the nature of a positive emotion.

It’s not with any hopelessness that I rifle through these thoughts. It all comes from the sense that although we all suffer setbacks and loss of control, it seems unfair to make them cumulative.

In my imagination, I spent a moment with amnesia. I indulged in the fantasy that the entirety of my personality was lost, and I had to regain it by reading everything I’d ever written. Then I had to explain myself… And I couldn’t. I heard myself say, “I know I seem sort of empty. I’m just a collection of words now. Which is probably what happens when someone loses their entire lifetime of experience.”

Kind of a cool tiny moment of realization.

I hope you don’t think this is the part where I get all sunflowers and what not.

True. With the oddly ordered history that has become my identity, I suffer. And it seems like 90% of it is unnecessary; if life wanted me to suffer, it could have just left me without a memory. Then it would get the pleasure of my surprise every time a new and awful thing happened to me, which let’s admit, is pretty frequently. I strongly suspect it’s that way for all of us.

Still, memory seems to compound suffering or regret more than it amplifies any other kind of experience. Still, it doesn’t seem like the most effective method of causing suffering. What I am saying is, I suspect that life’s purpose is not one of causing varied and individualized cases of suffering. It’s a suspicion that I could easily kill if I thought enough about it. But this suspicion offers hope. And I KNOW from my experiences that any time hope is a viable option, I ought to take it and not look back. See how this is all coming together? That’s because I’m in like my 16th experiential capstone course.

My daydream helped me think of things from another angle. Life experience – like it or not – creates interesting individuals. It gives me the privelege of all the things that last, like friendship and love. Love would not be fully functional, I believe, in a world without suffering. Which is not the same truth you hear in church, although it is worded almost the same, right? Your pastor says it in the rote way, and in the way that faith indicates is the most beneficial for its own survival and the survival of its ascribers. My assertion comes entirely from everything you’ve read here, in this one simple essay. Off topic, I’m a little paranoid about being associated with Christian arguments, because since I am a Christian it is often assumed that I have signed up for the whole shebang and done it with my eyes closed, which is increasingly untrue about me – increasingly.

The memory of suffering creates an interesting human being. The seeming randomization of these experiences fosters dialog. Our cumulative and possibly unique reactions to them give us the potential to build intimate relationships. Pan out to see this process repeated ad infinitum. There really has to be a big picture, right? It’s a viable theory. Especially since I have just so excellently argued that the details cause the picture to be interesting.

I’m glad it plays into my belief that everything knowable is already parallelled in created things. What I’ve just stated is an essential rule of good art. Is it possible, then, that as the Bible says, we are God’s poema, his truthful work of art?

Does this answer the question of human suffering? Like, not even, at all. I didn’t attempt to approach it; it might seem like I did, but remember this is about a cumulative human history that can be experienced by the parts but not the whole, and thus can never be fully experienced by anything. Why? And time… the way time seems to govern the whole thing but never bend itself low to interact with it. Why?

I will say this. I always suspect there is a better way to teach than to cause suffering. Which flies in the face of Christian doctrine, or what you may have been led to believe is the way God works. I’ll let you know if I find out anything else. But as a secondary method, it’s been effective for me in more than a few non-regrettable ways. It’s also given me insight into the truth about suffering. You could argue that in a world without suffering, that’s a truth we wouldn’t have much use for. I hear that. But I think I’m saying that being an active participant in life is probably my #1 driving force, which means I’d like to fully participate in whatever sick or beautiful game life is playing with us.