ABSTRACT
I would like to address two issues: the appearing of memories and the losses that occur in the appearing. I use the phrase, “the appearing of memories,” instead of “remembering” because I do not want to suggest that remembering is primarily something that we do or intend to do. We do remember, and that activity may be characterized by effort, discipline, failure and success, and many other attributes of individual effort. But actively remembering is only one, broad way in which memories appear, and even active remembering may well not be as defined by individual activity as we ordinarily think it is. “Loss” of memory in memories’ appearing, I shall suggest, figures a nonvoluntary and nonindividual aspect of memory, and remembering loss in the occurrence of loss-a performative possibility in memory-I shall say, constitutes a vital option as we attempt to let memory appear with awareness-as we remember memory’s loss, we might say awkwardly, in memories’ appearances. I propose by this discussion to address also a group of interrelated problems —a problematic-that arises in considering memory’s loss and that allows Jungian and “phenomenological” thought to encounter each other.1 This problematic is composed of questions about and interests in appearing, the “structures” (if they are structures) of appearing, the possible bases of appearances, and the “function” of memory in appearances and our recognitions of things. This problematic could quickly get out of hand, because, in addition to its intricacies, it could move easily into further questions of dreaming, psychodynamics, sacrality, and theoretical methodology. But I forego these and most other equally important issues and focus on the appearing of memory’s loss, which I believe will provide a space of encounter for people who work in a Jungian tradition and people who work in a phenomenological one.
