First off, the victor doesn't need a good memory because he does not need to plot revenge.  Whatever the little skirmishes or battles, the victor just moves off the field.  Why does he or she need a good memory?  What is there to remember?  It's the trampled and defeated that must stay stirred up and remember all the dastardly things they had done to them -- so if they ever get an upper hand they know how badly to treat their foes and all the individuals who insulted them.

     I have a new Revolutionary motto:  "That's That."  Someone operating on the basis of New Intelligence doesn't need a good memory about anything because whatever they do, they simply do it and then move on.  "That's That" would be a real motto if a person needed a motto.

     Only the simplistic need to recall their apparent victories.  Remember, for tonight, that "victor" and "defeated" are synonymous with the terms "more complex" and "more simplistic."  In case you didn't realize:  the simplistic and downtrodden do have some triumphs, even if only for a minute such as when the boss gives you a good dressing down and you make a face at him after he turns his back.  The more simplistic people are, the further they are from the 5-Dimensional moving edge of Life's intelligence and the greater is their need to recall apparent victory.  This is true individually and it's true with larger cellular groups:  tribes, nations, religions, organizations and institutions.

     Who is always hollering out in any era?  The simplistic.  Think about it.  Does the office bully recall all the people he cheated, all the practical jokes he pulled off?  No, it's those that were cheated, the butt of the jokes who remember the skirmishes.  The more complex -- the victors -- simply do what they do and move on.  How about in sports?  After Sunday's Super bowl game the winners take up several pages in Monday's paper.  You read about all the awards, the locker room interviews, the victory celebration.  But the hot news is good for only a day at the most.  By Tuesday, the winners are hardly mentioned.  The defeated then dominate the news.  Everyone from the head coach to the assistant water boy tries to analyze what happened.  That goes on for as long as people seem to be interested.  The simplistic, the defeated, are the ones who need to recall the battle.

     Nobody deserves the title "victor" if they do recall their triumphs.  In Life, if a hero talks too much about victory, he loses his position as a hero, whether he be a quarterback or somebody who overthrew a tyrannical government.  If a hero goes too far recalling his victory, her triumph, it will break down.  For example, a man saves a dozen children from a fire and he's the toast of the town.  He's on the news for two or three days.  If, after that, he keeps calling up the TV stations and newspapers trying to get further coverage, the news director will just cut the story.  If somehow it got out to the public that this guy kept calling back, asking for interviews, recalling his heroism, the public would no longer consider him a hero.  They might even start thinking, "I bet that guy's a pervert.  What was he doing hanging around a building full of children anyway?"

     No one deserves the title of victor if they have much of a recollection of their triumphs.  The quiet, heroic historical figures are known by their actual physical triumphs -- there are no great records of what these people said, no writings or interviews.  Contemporary heroes, in literature and in movies -- the John Waynes of American film culture -- just do whatever good needs to be done, tip their hats and ride off without a word.

     How about you internally?  People are apparently in some sort of struggle with themselves via the Dialogue between a "you talking" and a "you listening."  But, the victor does not need a good memory.  Anyone who needs to recall their apparent triumphs does not deserve the name victor.  You can't be an apparent victor if you keep talking about the victory, even to yourself.

     In the City it's just the opposite.  "Hello.  My name is Dr. X and I'm an alcoholic.  As you know, we don't say we're cured, we say we're recovering.  It's been 30 years, in fact, it's been 30 years, 6 months, 4 days, 7 hours and 20 minutes since I had a drink."  A whole group of people meets weekly for that.  In the City, people want to repeat their apparent triumphs and that doesn't seem strange; it moves energy, acts as a reinforcement.
      What are friends and family for?  You speak to one another about your triumphs.  You could be at a cocktail party and your good friend says of another friend, "He quit drinking," and several people standing around say, "Really?"  "Yes.  Can you believe he did that?"  In the City that conversation is just right.  It transfers energy, facilitates needed exchanges.  It circulates heat, blood and CO2 -- but it is simplistic, very simplistic compared with what I'm talking about.

     Such ordinary energy runs opposite to what I have previously mentioned about "not telling yourself what you're doing."  It won't kill you to tell yourself what you're doing, and from one view it doesn't really interfere with the doing, but would Clint Eastwood do that in one of his westerns?  Would Buddha have run around screaming, "I've seen the light, I've seen the light"?  Such talk takes the edge off apparent change -- keeps it from becoming the creme de la creme of what's possible.  Such energy will not move an individual in his or her lifetime.

     Ordinary memory is necessary for City affairs, but insofar as anything you've ever done -- if you need to remember it, if you seem to enjoy remembering it -- anything that makes you want to almost squeal and tell someone what you did, was nothing.  It was simplistic and anybody could have done it.  The deed was no sort of triumph, no matter what it was.  It was real and important enough at City level, but from another view, it was nothing.  That's why you have to have a good memory of it.

     Let's say for years you drank or took narcotics.  One day you just quit, but you still remember.  You either talk or think about your triumph, or maybe you see a TV program about how drugs are ruining the country and you squeal with joy every time you remember how you just up and quit.  An absolute Revolutionary fact, a more complex fact is:  If you still have such a reaction, then you made no effort, you did nothing.  On the surface you could have been as addicted as anyone, but if you actually still have a memory and you indulge that memory, then what you did -- you didn't do.  Behind it was something else that was "did" and you just took credit for it like you were supposed to.  This is simply a more complex fact that cannot be proved at City level.

     If you do something that was not native, that you were not wired up to do in the general projected field of where you are in the overall growth of Life; if you actually Do something -- you almost forget about it.  You have no ordinary memory of it, no superior memory, no squealing memory of seeing others in that same position and shouting, "Ha!" because a true victor doesn't need a good memory.  Memory is not part of the victory.  Only the simplistic have memories of apparent triumphs -- the more complex have none.

     A true triumph requires no memory.  It is so unnatural, so unexpected, that it is far at the fringes of Life's general middle class growth.  Life is not prepared for people to do something outside their job description, something extraordinary -- not walk on water or talk to the dead -- Life's not prepared for people to push their own nervous system beyond the ordinary limits.  What's the sense in remembering something outside the ordinary perception of your nervous system?  Who are you going to talk to about it?  Only things that do not classify as "That's That" can be recalled.  Only ordinary people believe:  "This is my life.  I have to tell somebody!"  I'm not describing a psychological flaw in Man -- memory serves a purpose.  Memory keeps Life's energy moving.

     A scientific aside regarding conduction.  Conduction is the transfer of energy (such as heat) through a medium (such as metal) without the medium apparently undergoing any change.  A Real Revolutionist's apparent triumphs are like an energy flow which he understands was either necessary or unavoidable; whereas, people in the City are apparently changed by the flow of energy they conduct.

     For instance, how about a person who quit drinking?  People, including the person who quit, take it for granted that someone is changed because their behavior (in this case, drinking) has altered.  Apparently an energy flowed through the person and made them change from a habitual drinker to a teetotaler.  Why would anybody in the City change some behavior if they were not going to feel correspondingly changed?  If someone said, "I converted to being a Muslim," and you asked them, "Do you feel different?" they surely would reply, "Of course I do.  Why would I have converted if I wasn't going to be different?"  At the 3-D level, in the City, an energy flow apparently changes the medium, the person -- which is not in line with the scientific notion of conduction.  This sense of individual transformation is so basic that no one questions how it contradicts the crude scientific facts.

     A Real Revolutionist looks at apparent triumphs, things he or she did or did not do, and realizes there is nothing to remember, no credit to take, nothing to say -- it was all just a matter of conduction.  The revolutionist was in a particular place, in the flow of Life's energy, and the energy had to go through.  It was unavoidable.  Anything other than something you actually Do is simply a matter of conduction.  A revolutionist doesn't take it personally.  If someone asks, "Did that change you?" a Real Revolutionist wouldn't answer, or, if you did have to answer you'd understand:  "If it did change me, I didn't do it right.  There was a battle and I got changed.  I've been beat.  I've become more simplistic."  At the City level you apparently won, but from a Revolutionary view you were defeated.  You didn't do it.  You were merely a conduit for Life's energy and that's that.

     An aside to an aside:  I've pointed out before that Life is not all that dangerous.  Life is not really that much of a burden.  A would-be Revolutionist straining his or her own internal limits of intelligence should be able to hear that Life is not that big a drag.  The fact remains though:  Some part of everyone's intelligence, to varying degrees, is tied up with the injustice of Life.  You look around and there are children starving to death, people being mistreated, mutilated, tortured by others -- that's a fact.  But only ordinary intelligence, old intelligence, refers to that in a conductive manner.

     At certain times for certain reasons I've led you to believe I was taking a shot at people apparently trying to change the world, such as people marching in front of congress decrying hunger.  The protesters are not at the right place.  Even if people march right in front of the organization that is supposedly mistreating people, they are protesting in the wrong place.

     A Real Revolutionist would not be "out there" doing the useless.  A Real Revolutionist realizes:  "It's not the secret police torturing people in some country -- Life is doing it.  Life.  The very same energy that makes me exceedingly, inexpressibly pleased with what Life has done for me."  Those with a feel for This Thing should periodically express pleasure to Life, maybe say to yourself:  "Thanks a lot, Life.  I don't know what to call This; the chances are small to stumble into This; I don't know why I'm involved and I don't deserve This, but so what -- I don't deserve this nose either!  Thanks a lot Life, for This Thing."

     You have no business protesting out in the street, or internally saying, "My, my, how unjust."  You don't know how to protest.  You don't know where the fault lies (if indeed there is a fault).  If you knew how to protest you would be well within your rights to do so, but anyone who doesn't properly know how has no business being a critic of Life.  The world appears to be full of injustice.  There seems to be this other side of a more complex coin:  humans being starved and tortured.  You can look upon it as Life in action, not humans.  I periodically, on behalf of everyone involved with This, have a few words to say to Life about such as that.  But you've got no business protesting and whining because you don't know where to protest.

     Now, back to the main track:  You should see specifically how Life uses ordinary memory through Man.  The apparent instantaneous working of memory is a kind of prepackaged, freeze dried, reusable, "squeeze out the last drop" use of energy.  The ordinary working of memory is a continual re-fighting of the last war, a continual reselling, a retrading of yesterday's stocks -- the eternal, ultimate Monday morning quarterbacking.

     Dragging out the last drop of fun from Sunday's game and second-guessing the quarterback can appear to be a relatively innocuous hobby.  But it's more than that.  Look at what memory does:  everybody wants to judge everyone else "out there" by their behavior while internally judging themselves not on the basis of what they do, but on the basis of what they think.  Then, if you consider what you think as being synonymous with memory, look at what you do with memory.  Look at how, in the privacy of your own head, you forever fight the last war.  The last war is over.  You are trying to retrade the stock you sold yesterday.  Maybe it did go up and you lost money, but you don't have to sit there thinking, "Why did I sell?  I started not to sell, I didn't have to sell."

     Victors do not need a good memory:  If you gleefully remember, "I told those bastards," then you are not victorious.  If you even recollect your triumphs, then they were not real triumphs and you do not deserve, even within yourself, any title, any notion that you have ever done anything.

     Look at how you think of you, how you judge yourself based on what you think -- an almost exclusive, continual re-fighting of the last war.  Not just in conversation with others:  "I overcame alcohol, cocaine, being a bachelor," but internally.  Look at how your feeling of what you are is based on what you think, not how you behave.  Check it out.  You think of you primarily, you think of you in part, on the basis of forever fighting the last war.

     It would be easy to fall from this into, "That's true and it must have some kind of psychological basis."  It does not.  "Psychological" doesn't have a basis.  So, what is Life up to?  To what end does someone's idea of themselves keep them in the queue, lined up headed toward you know where?  You continually refight the last war.  That is your judgment, your conception of you:  not your behavior, but thinking about the last war, thinking about what actually happened.  That is why everyone can go through some kind of reconstruction of memory.  That is why in the City, within minutes after something happens, witnesses all recall a slightly different story.  People can reconstruct a memory that differs from the way the event happened.  That is them thinking about themselves and what they think about what happened -- not what happened.  They are re-fighting the last war.

     Re-fighting the last war is necessary for everyone in the City -- popes, congressmen, business people -- everyone except a Real Revolutionist.  Because, for a revolutionist it's useless.  It's not wrong, other than you're wasting your life.  To think about anything you did and refight; to pat yourself on the back in any manner is useless.  You might as well be watching TV or reading a holy book.  To try to do This and still continually involve yourself in useless affairs, carried to a certain point, becomes worse than useless -- that which is morbific becomes morbid.

     The useless, if carried far enough becomes deadly.  You starve yourself, you continually go in the wrong direction, you rethink things, you stay at the old boundaries and you take them as necessary, as victories.  "Every day I think great thoughts.  I'm listening to subliminal tapes and now I'm even talking to myself subliminally.  I know I'm getting stronger."  Trust me, if  that's your kind of memory, you're not getting stronger and you're not getting weaker.  You're just standing in line spitting and kicking at rocks along with everyone else.

     If you must recall your apparent victories that's proof positive you had no victories, that you are still simplistic.  Anything you've ever done that you can really recall was no triumph.  It's meaningless.  You're playing with more simplistic energy that is inherently City-bred.  You're using, eating and thinking energy which, at Line level, is not better or worse than what's available to everyone else.  Is that all you want?  If so, "have at it."  If so, you have no choice.  The rest of your life you will "have at it" while saying, "At least I'm not having at it."

     I just know that Life chuckles at that, because people will do anything as long as they can say, "I'm not doing that."