Living in the Moment Doesn't Require Brain Damage

Nearly every author who writes about brain function mentions two paradigm shifting cases: Phineas Gage and Henry Molaison.  If neuroscience ever establishes a list of saints, these two will "head" the hagiography (bad pun intended).  Gage was a rail worker who survived the high-speed passage of an iron rod through his prefrontal lobes.  Molaison was the unfortunate victim of a surgical treatment for epilepsy which removed most of his hippocampus and deprived him of the ability to form any new memories.

The Wikipedia article on Gage is a good and brief summary of his case (with pictures).  You can see that article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage.  There is a lovely tribute from earlier this year in Psychology Today to Molaison at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/trouble-in-mind/201201/hm-the-man-no-memory.

Jeff Brown and Mark Fenske describe Molaison's case in The Winner's Brain.  I was struck by their conclusion (page 22).  Because poor Henry forget who you were even if he turned away from you for a moment, they suggest that he "truly lived in the moment."  By the way, if you want to see a humorous and accurate portrayal of something like Henry's case, watch the movie Fifty First Dates.  One of the characters at the fictional neurological institute exhibits symptoms identical to those of Mr. Molaison.

Is it accurate to say that truly living in the moment would require the obliteration of past memories?  I think not.  If this moment is the only moment, then the statement by Brown and Fenske has no real meaning.  I know they weren't making some deep existential point.  They were just being a bit cute, and I don't blame them.

Truly living in the moment, however, must include acknowledging the past as real.  The past is part of who we are in the present.  Living in the moment is not radical forgetting.  It is, however, fully letting go of the power of the past to control us in the present.  So embracing the past as indeed real and powerful is part of living in the moment.  Letting go of the past as past is necessary to that living in the moment as well.

I never forget the things that have happened to me that make me who I am.  Instead, I deal with the past.  I integrate it into my present.  I use my past as a resource for wisdom, gratitude, humor and hope.  I pray that I would not suffer from the forgetfulness of poor Henry.  That's not serenity.  That's pathology.

In fact, it is in those moments when I am not conscious of my past that I am most controlled by it.  When I have those crazy responses to present stimuli, I must remind myself that something else is going on.  It's time to stop and reassess myself and deepen my awareness of what is driving my reactions.  A loss of memory cuts off that process in tragic ways.  It is no wonder that recovering suppressed and damaged memories can be such a powerful part of therapy for some of us.

It is telling, after all, that we would regard Mr. Molaison as damaged rather than fortunate.  At times I do envy the utterly carefree life he must have lived after his surgery.  But imagine the swirl of confusion that filled his brain.  Parts of his brain in fact could remember things.  He could develop skills and retain those skills at a subconscious and pre-verbal level.  He couldn't however, remember why he could remember.

That must have been terrifying.

The past is a resource for choosing to hope in the future.  Embracing the past and using what is there is part of that choosing process.  We let go of the power of the past but we learn the lessons that lie there.

That is part of really living in the moment.