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One Love
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| Posted 11/27/2011 9:13 AM (GMT -6) |   | | Man With Amnesia Lost 46 Years in Workplace Slip
The videos and photographs show scenes from a full and prosperous life: A couple getting married, raising kids, celebrating the holidays and taking family vacations.
They're precious memories. But the man who lived them cannot remember them -- any of them.
In fact Scott Bolzan has no memory of any part of his life story. It's all been erased.
"These are things I know I should remember," said Bolzan, 47. "My first date, my first kiss with my wife, our wedding day, the birth of my children -- all of those memories that everyone else in the whole world shares. ... These are things I know I should remember ... I have no emotional attachment to these days even when I look at the pictures."
Bolzan has an extreme case of severe retrograde amnesia. He slipped in the men's restroom of his office building and hit his head on the ground. He can remember nothing that happened prior to the accident. Over the past 16 months, he has had to re-meet family and friends, while embarking on a journey to re-learn his life story and re-build a sense of self-identity.
"The best word I can use to describe it is just being lost," said Bolzan. "Because I lost who I am."
The Bolzans
From Scott's Blog...
posted by scott in Scott's Blog on Dec 22nd, 2009
December 17th marked the one year anniversary of my brain injury. My family even celebrated it with a birthday cake, we make a lot of jokes in our house, if we didn’t we would cry even more. This past year has been a constant learning process and never ending firsts for most things. There have been so many things that I have experienced for the first time since dealing with retrograde amnesia. I am still amazed after one year how many things I have forgotten over the life of 46 years. In this past year I have learned that family is the most important aspect of my life, without my wife Joan and my daughter Taylor I do not feel I would have survived this horrific accident. They have helped me learn to cope with losing my memory and to teach me acceptance and patience. Both have taught me how to be a husband and how to be a father by sharing stories of my past as well as describing my reactions to situations in my previous life. Although my son Grant has not been around for much of this year I try to better understand how he struggles with his own life. I know deep down Grant desires to be involved in our family but he seems to be fighting his inner self to allow himself to fully accept his sobriety and this causes our family much pain.
This past year I am also putting together some of the puzzle pieces as to who I am as a man, husband, father, son and business man. This process of reinventing myself is still the hardest for me to deal with. The thought of me ever figuring out who I once was and how I can become that person without having any memories to go on is a daunting task at best. I have done so many things this year to try and recreate my past but it still seems like I am living someone else’s life and not my own.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/27/2011 8:31:16 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/27/2011 9:18 AM (GMT -6) | | | To me, this goes to show the "Strange Loop" of the mind and brain talked about by James Loder. It seems as if the agency of self-relatedness and self-transcendence--the non-corporeal energy of the "I" and the locus of center of choice and belief--is still intact. Bolzan has the ability to think about his thoughts, be self-aware, cognate using his thoughts and feelings, and express them. However, because of brain injury (very reduced blood flow to the front part of the brain) , all of his lived personal memories were inaccessible for the use of the "I". He lost lived memories of his family, friends, profession, and all that.
The interesting question is this: Besides his family and friends, what kept Scott Bolzan being "Scott Bolzan"? Nothing that I can see. So, is "Scott Bolzan" a PERSON per se...or more like an PATTERN of self-knowledge given his body and environment?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/27/2011 8:48:37 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/27/2011 9:52 AM (GMT -6) | | INTERESTING....
Learning to Love God Again
Bolzan has retrograde amnesia, which means he remembers everything since the accident, but almost nothing before the event. The problem is a lack of blood flow to to the front part of the brain, where long-term memories are stored.
Since his accident, Bolzan has had to re-learn all the things most of us take for granted, thanks to Google, TV and Joan.
"I could not get the days of the week, the months of the year. I knew them, but I couldn't get them in order," he said.
Bolzan also forgot his Christian faith, so Joan told him about Jesus all over again.
"Trying to teach him about the Lord and faith, I just tried to show him God's awesomeness through our world," she said.
"There is a Lord. There is a bigger person who is not only watching over us, but creating amazing and awesome opportunities," Joan added.
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Uh, oh. I guess he lost his salvation and all that! 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/27/2011 5:11 PM (GMT -6) | | My thoughts:
Scott Bolzan, a self-understood husband, father, pilot, CEO, ceased to exist when he hit his head. A person arose who knows nothing of any Scott Bolzan or his family or his company...and is now trying to re-learn the life of Scott Bolzen, helped by his wife and daughter. Hence, his feelings...
This process of reinventing myself is still the hardest for me to deal with. The thought of me ever figuring out who I once was and how I can become that person without having any memories to go on is a daunting task at best. I have done so many things this year to try and recreate my past but it still seems like I am living someone else’s life and not my own.
This is the non-corporeal aspect of the human body born "Scott Bolzan"...disengaged from the previously-held personality memory/imagination amalgam in the brain that was "Scott Bolzan"...who is talking.
In other words, I see no real personal continuity between the man who hit the floor...and the man who got up now living "someone else's life" not his own...except for inhabiting the same human incorporeal/corporeal relational unity, do you? In other words, the pre-fall Bolzan and the post-fall Bolzen are effectively two different identities...even to "Bolzan" himself!
Hmmm...
Think about it, Tom. If this happened to Anita, would things ever really be the same? Forgetting all the family including you? I know things wouldn't be the same with me and Aki. She wouldn't feel like the same person to me. Even if she had the same voice and speech patterns. Our shared history and shared meaning would be lost. How could that feel the same, you know? The most a couple could do is to create a new shared meaning and history inadvertantly in their repeatedly failing attempts to recover their previously held shared meaning and history. This would NOT be the same as having your longtime friend back...right? If your wife and best friend were to irreversibly become a total stranger to you...and herself...by her falling in the bathroom, how could the previous marriage and friendship relationship between you and her not be over as if she were actually dead? See what I'm saying?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/27/2011 4:36:56 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/27/2011 10:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/28/2011 6:05 AM (GMT -6) | | Similtude:
Define person, D. I'm not sure what Scott is if not a person.
I mean that "Scott"--not the human incorporeal/corporeal relational unity itself--is a stored personality amalgam...and that stored personality amalgam was lost by brain damage following his fall. Surely that's easy to see via his writings, yea?
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Similtude:
Do you, e.g., deny that Scott still has concepts (as opposed to memories of particulars) that only exist because of a real history of abstraction he performed in the past? Scott still IS that very person who those very concepts. Forgetting more or less of the past doesn't undo the fact that you exist and have existed during that history.
Let's make distinctions. What's in play here?
1) human spirit
2) human brain
3) human ego function (of brain)
4) human personality
These things are interrelated yet distinct aspects of human psychology/spirituality. A human being cannot express personhood in this life without the 4 aspects above. "Scott" is a personality amalgam used by his human ego, the whole process being supported by the human spirit. And just because the "Scott" personality was used 47 years of his life doesn't mean that said personality is what is being experienced right now. My claim is that, even per dude himself, the "Scott" personality pre-fall...and the personality post-fall are distinct identity patterns. That why he said that in trying to re-learn aspects of the Scott personality, he feels that he is living someone else's life, not his own. Because of the malfunction of his brain, human ego function [and self-relatedness involved] is forced to reorganize his personality by what IS there to be used...effectively creating another identity. Is this making sense?
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Jeff:
Since you say he's not a person, does he now have none of the constitutional rights that apply to persons in your opinion?
Again, I'm saying that the PERSONALITY AMALGAM that was "Scott" no longer exists. If the "Scott" personality amalgam were to have committed a company malfeasance a decade ago as CEO that was found out now, would anyone try to actively blame the post-fall "Scott" for the actions...and hold "him" accountable for the deeds of his "past life" (his words)? I seriously don't think so. His amnesia is documented and proven so no one's gonna dispute that. So it would be be absolutely unfair to blame the post-fall personality that KNOWS and KNEW nothing about any of that stuff. See what I'm saying?
Yesterday I attended a board meeting for the Brain Injury Association of Arizona as a prospective board member. The meeting lasted for nearly 2 hours and at the end of the meeting I was asked to stay back and talk to the Director. The Director who is a very kind and gentle person told me that she had something that she needed to bring up to me and discuss. I come to find out that the reporter who did an article about my story had called her because he received a letter from a someone who wrote derogatory things about me and said that I was faking my injury to get out of pending lawsuits and he felt the need to contact this director to ask her for her opinion on whether or not she felt that she knew me enough to know if I was faking this injury. Long story short, the director of this association had informed him that my intentions were genuine and that in no way did she feel that I was faking or trying to gain something by this injury.
On the ride home after this meeting I suddenly started to feel embarrassed and confused as to why somebody would feel this way about me enough to write a reporter who did a story about me and my family and humiliate us in the way. Now the hard part, I had to tell my wife what had happened after the board meeting and watch the reaction of pain and amazement that covered her face. Not only was this person attacking me but they were also attacking my wife and children. Joan and I talked about who this could be and Joan knew exactly who this was.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/28/2011 7:39:24 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/28/2011 6:37 AM (GMT -6) | | I'll give an example.
Let's say that I hit my head today and the same thing happened to me that happened to Bolzan. I remember none of you guys, nothing about theology, Woodland, or Greg, comic books, being Southern..and don't even remember what it's like to be American and "black." I now detest hip-hop...and I don't remember ANY of my experiences with Jesus...and am TRULY agnostic (obviously!) None of them. Now, one of y'all decides to call a week later. A family member tells you what has happened. I talk to you on the phone. I have absolutely no demonstration of any particular emotional attachment to you or our shared past. Are you really talking to "Dwayne", minister and your longtime friend? If not, who are you talking to? Hmmm. I'd still have my human spirit. And my human ego would still be working (that's why I'd still be able to internalize and express my experience meaningfully). The difference would be that my ego functioning would NOT have use of certain neural pathways in my brain; the information on those pathways would inaccessible to the ego process, being irrepairably "negatively prehended" in any future self-world composition of my mind/brain relational unity, my power of "I". The outcome would be a NEW ADAPTIVE PATTERN of acquired personality traits/memory/imagination in the human hypostatic relational unity named "Dwayne": a new personality pattern that self-expresses as self-understanding himself as distinct from that of "Dwayne's" self-understanding. For you to describe "Dwayne" to me would be experienced by me as if I were--again--hearing about the same complete stranger that "my family" would be telling me about.
So, who would you be talking to? Would you be talking to "Dwayne" (as y'all have understood me to be) in any real sense? Given the irrepairability of the situation, would you EVER talk to "Dwayne" again?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/28/2011 6:18:11 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/28/2011 7:00 AM (GMT -6) | | BTW, this whole thing is why I believe that C. Stephen Evans, in his UofM talk, was fundamentally right about his contention that our ideas about human identity (spiritual or otherwise) have to take into account what we know about the human brain and it's workings. We have every reason to believe that the human "self" (it's self-understandings and self-expressions) is constituted in part by the health and activity of the neural pathways of our human brains; it is the self-relation of the bi-polar assymmetrical relational unity between the incorporeal locus of human subjectivity, awareness, choice, meaning, and belief and the corporeal human brain and it's ego functioning. One or more personae can be "taken on" in this process...depending on the state of the brain.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/28/2011 6:06:38 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/28/2011 7:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Thought:
We (prosopons) OVERIDENTIFY with our personality formation becoming locked in INDIVIDUALITY...believing that a certain personality amalgam of traits/memory/imagination produced by our interactions with our parents, family, friends, society IS the whole of us. We become egocentric around the personality amalgam, denying our spiritual--relational--potential. This is being trapped in "biological hypostasis."
You can see it when you talk about it. Am I supposed to say that the habitual self-experiential memory of "Dwayne" stored within my brain and used by the brain's ego functioning is the center and grounding empowerment of my hypostatic, intra- and inter-personal existence? That doesn't even make sense. Not with cases of amnesia like Bolzan out there. So to BELIEVE such a thing--to drive all the powers of the human self for the self-preservation and self-expansion of the self-experiential memory of "Dwayne"--is to fall for an EGOCENTRIC ILLUSION or MIRAGE made possible by the self-relational powers of the human incorporeal/corporeal relational unity. It's a mistake analogous one made often in Christian spirituality: taking the activity of the dianoia to be the center of one's identity and relationship with God in the believer--rather than seeing the center as an irreducible relationality between the activity of the dianoia and the transcending powers of the nous (which empowers the dianoia).
Is this making sense? Seriously! 
Repost... remixed...
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"Dwayne Polk" as a self-reflected image of memory and self-perception from inter- and intra-personal activity of my mind/brain unity (the "individual" ) exists ENTIRELY IN NATURE. It's a personality amalgam of thoughts, emotions, and experiences centered around my human intelligible/sensible unity as human being...which forms a core of habitual self-experience and self-willing. It's basically the EGO in development. But this is NOT strictly "person" in the true sense. It is, as Evdokimov says..."a particular mixture of natural elements, with certain prominent traits." The ENFJ-ness. My "African-American" experience. My being from "Texas". All that. My ego periphery pulls all this together and says "I am this." But this is NOT FREE from nature. It's straight up biological hypostasis...and left to itself, "Dwayne Polk" will only live out socially constructed realities that made "him" up. Without relating rightly to the Divine Ground, "Dwayne Polk's" ego can only end in disintergration and death...and will be terribly dependent on false ideas of universality, society, etc in order to keep itself going. The true "I am" in Dwayne Polk is FAAAAAAAR deeper than that. It is centered on the spiritual reality of bi-polar assymetrically relationality with the Holy Spirit of Christ-the-Logos. THAT is when the "I am" that my ego believes it possesses is SHOWN to be given to "me" ONLY BY GRACE. This FREES the ego from being trapped in nature...and releases it into true being.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/29/2011 5:09:45 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/29/2011 7:05 AM (GMT -6) | | | Yup.
At the beginning of our transformational work, it is easy to feel frustrated and overwhelmed. It is also easy to begin to see the personality as an enemy that must be defeated since it is, after all, the repository and residue of so much "baggage" from our past, with all of its hurts, damage, and disappointments. When we are tempted to think this way, it is good to realize that the personality is not separate from us—in fact, it is an important and legitimate part of ourselves: the problem is simply that we mistake the part for the whole. Personality depends on our identifying with certain states, feelings, thoughts, and reactions even though whenever we do so, we experience ourselves as less than the totality of who and what we really are.
The spirituality of the Enneagram does not divide us into good (Essence) and bad (personality), but simply recognizes that when we are identified with our personalities, we forget that there is much more to us. The personality has the function of closing us down so that we can feel more defended against a threatening and uncertain world. At one time in our lives, in childhood, this response was adaptive and necessary. We had to identify with whatever qualities we found in ourselves in order to defend ourselves more efficiently and to find our place in the world.
But if we were able to stop identifying with our personality right now, who would we be? What would guide our actions? Who or what would be speaking in us? If, all of a sudden, the "autopilot" that directs many of our actions is no longer in charge, how would we be able to live?
There are no predetermined answers to these questions since we are not talking about finding a better formula or more rules to live by. We are talking about transformation—changing our state of Being—which requires being aware in the present moment. This inevitably leads to learning how to interfere with our habitual patterns, which in turn entails some degree of discomfort. But if we are willing to allow this discomfort, we can suddenly emerge from the tangle of reactions, plans, self-images, and tensions that constitute our regular life and realize that we are here. We exist. We are real. When we experience this recognition, it is like walking out of a fog bank.
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Bolzan is in a state where his "Scott" autopilot was no longer in charge.
"There's an internal mechanism that everyone goes through except me. Of every decision they've made in their life, and every experience they've experienced, has made them who they are, and I have none of that," he [Bolzan] continued.
On the bright side, Bolzman can't recall any painful memories.
"I don't have any prejudices, preconceived notions, no expectations," Bolzan told CBN News.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/29/2011 6:14:43 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/29/2011 7:17 AM (GMT -6) | | | Just good quotes....
Essential nature is analogous to spiritual nature...
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The personality is always composed of a small fraction of the total range of our potentials. It contains imitations of the real, more expansive qualities of our Essential nature which include joy, love, peace, compassion, strength, understanding, and many other priceless qualities. Moreover, our Essence awakens us to the beauty all around us—to the gifts of nature and the miracle of other people. In every moment, there are treasures and sources of delight, if we could only open to them. In the world of personality, we are too filled with our own projects and preoccupations, worries and hopes to notice the exquisite pleasure of being alive and the astounding variety of life.
But as we expand more fully into our Essential nature, our senses are awakened—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, intuiting. The world is more immediate and has a deeper impact on us; everything becomes more vivid and alive. We have all had moments in which a veil seems to have been removed so that the enchantment of even the smallest things touches us deeply. We experience the world once again with the innocence of a child, with all of the awe and mystery of life restored.
When we are functioning in personality, however, to varying degrees, our attention is caught up in imagination and is looking to the future or toward the past. Personality is always in some kind of reaction to the present moment. When we are functioning in Essence, we are grounded, present, and receptive to the moment. We see precisely what is necessary, and with exquisite economy, we are able to do it without unnecessary effort or resistance. We are capable, substantial, and real.
Further, because it is not what is real in us, but merely a construct in our minds, personality does not have any authority or power in itself. When we are lost in personality, it is not surprising that we often feel powerless, confused, and unsafe because we are basing our identity on an artificial construct. (If we are identified with something that is not real, then many things are going to be extremely threatening.) Our entire identity structure has been built up in our memory and imagination, whereas our true power and authority comes from our Essence, from our contact with the Divine. And yet, ironically, we fear and resist opening to that which is most real in us. When we trust in the process and give ourselves over to it, however, our authentic self comes forth. The result is real integrity, love, authenticity, creativity, understanding, guidance, joy, power, and serenity—all of the qualities we are forever demanding that personality supply.
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In other words, the ground of our identity and transcendence is NOT our habituated center of self-oriented, self-experiential memory and imagination stored in our neural pathways...it is our spiritual nature which is a natural place of relationship with the Divine. Our spiritual--relational, intrapersonal, transpersonal, interpersonal--realities should be expressed through our ego's use of personality. Instead, people have truncated their personal existences through the egocentric identification with a particularly-constructed, historically-held personality matrix...effectively constraining the free, choosing self by the boundaries of "world composition" allowable by continuity with one's habitual self-experiential memory/imagination stored within the brain and used by the brain's ego functioning. This is how most people become little more than walking, talking billboards for their family, culture, nation, religion, etc.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/29/2011 7:01:24 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 11/29/2011 8:21 AM (GMT -6) | | As I think about it, I think this is what Jesus was trying to get at when he talked about how one's loving allegiance to the Creator, God, ultimately trumps all other familial, cultural, religious ties. At the same time, Jesus taught how one's familial, cultural, and religious engagements are to reflect their loving allegiance to the Creator, God. That is living SPIRITually.
Worshipping God (who is Spirit) in spirit and truth can be expressed in this type of activity...and it follows the Great Commandments. When our LIVES express free, loving, worship...being synergistic "living sacrifices" filled with the One Triune God working in, with, and through us via the Holy Spirit, centered on God's concerns...we fulfill our THEANDRIC purpose.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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