Remembrance is the root of mental illness.
The event at the present moment is the totality of actuality – choate existence. The present only presents a situation which may entice problem-solving aimed at a satisfaction or simply enjoyment of the moment.
The past is only an echo from the mind, delivered as a shadowy remembrance.
All mental illness emanates from memory. Sentimentality invokes mental illness via emotional attachment to memories which disturb and alienate perception away from actuality. PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is the crippling of its victim via disruptive memory of what no longer exists.
Idealism is another form of sentimentality. Ideals don’t exist. Adoring concepts, such as with idealism, is psychotic in being divorced from actuality. Political beliefs are typically idealistic.
The mind naturally merges memories to accomplish skill, which is the only value of memory, and which requires no conscious recall. All other employments of memory are enslavement to the mind, which is ipso facto mental illness – the spiritual state of ignorance which elementally defines the Collective.
Clarity: The Path Inside, is a primer on reality and mental health. The podcast show Reality & Realization also covers this territory. (You can read transcripts of my podcasts by clicking on an episode or clicking “shownotes” on the media player.)