The Golem

"If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past."
–Benedict Spinoza, Dutch philosopher

Studying the past is different than dwelling in the past. When you dig down inside your psyche, and mine the stored memories it holds, enlightenment may follow.

Have you ever stopped doing something because you had a feeling that it was wrong? Not the moral equivalent of right from wrong, but the not-wanting-to-repeat a mistake kind of tingling sensation? That is how the past signals to you that it can aid in the shaping of the present. Error prevention. Like dashboard warning lights on a car. How many times do you touch a hot stove before you realize not too? Only takes once for most of us, though I keep banging my head on the rear-lift door on my Jeep on the cold days when the hydraulic lifts don’t take it all the way up. Physical pain may be more poignant about teaching us certain behaviors than other sensations. And maybe I shouldn't have such a hard head so I so easily forget.

Creativity may also be the benefit from stored memories. Some people believe that to truly be creative requires a brand new spark, a unique vision of the present. On the contrary, the best of the creative world uses history--global as well as personal--to conjure up its imagery, sounds and vision. Van Gogh was constantly redoing his paintings, revisiting the same places and trying to capture a certain madness that was embedded in his mind which he wanted to paint. Canvas after canvas were covered with the same fields and people, yet every one was unique. His colors meant nothing to the realism, yet everything to his present feelings.

Every news story out there has some similar relation to the news of the past. Health care as a topical example has been dealt with by just about every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Everyone working on it now is trying to avoid the pitfalls of past attempts at it by carefully crafting a plan that will somehow work. They are trying to shape a program that won’t end up an enormous and uncooperative golem, that to try and fix piecemeal would be a difficult and dangerous endeavor.

We need to adopt the lessons from the past but we cannot let it crumble upon and crush the present.

Footnote: Jewish tradition holds that the golem is a creature created by magic, often to serve its creator. Some mystics believe the creation of a golem has symbolic meaning only, like a spiritual experience following a religious rite. A golem can became enormous and uncooperative and the creator may have to use trickery to deactivate it. The creators hubris may bring them down as well as the golem when this is attempted. Think Dr. Frankenstein and the monster or Social Security.