42 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
Let us use this diagram to explain the example of the girl with the dress.
Any experience which comes in to Mercy strategy will form a memory.
Therefore, the situation of seeing the dress in the window created the
memory „A.‟ This new memory reminded Mercy thought of two other
memories: „B,‟ and „C.‟ „B‟ was the composite memory of previous
window shopping. This memory had a positive emotional label—it felt
fairly good. If „B‟ were the only memory to be triggered, then „A,‟ the new
experience of seeing the doll in the window, would have also received a
good label. However, „A‟ also managed to connect with the old memory of
„C,‟ the embarrassing situation from childhood, which was labeled with a
very strong negative feeling. The result was that the intense negative
emotion of „C‟ overwhelmed the lesser positive feeling of „B.‟ Therefore,
„A,‟ the new memory of seeing the doll in the window, unexpectedly
acquired a bad emotion.
Take this example, multiply it millions of times, and you have Mercy
processing. Everywhere the Mercy person goes, he is being reminded of
emotional experiences—he is associating to memories of experiences
which have emotional labels. This means that the way he feels about the
present is largely determined by how he feels about his past.A
Because past experiences have such a large effect upon present emotion,
the Mercy person will often try to use the past to influence how he feels
about the present. The environment will be arranged in such a way as to
remind Mercy strategy of memories which have good emotions. Of course,
we all do this to some extent, but for the Mercy person, this is conscious
thought. This is where he lives.
Christmas time at my home
provides a good example. My
mother is a Mercy person. She
has fond memories of
celebrating Christmas as a
child. So whenever we have
Christmas, my father must go
through exactly the same
routine that my mother‟s father
carried out when she was little:
We all go outside and stand in a row from youngest to oldest. Dad comes
out and says in Low German: “Children, it‟s Christmas!” Then we file into
the room with the Christmas tree, singing „Silent Night‟ in German. Finally,
we all sit down and father reads the Christmas story. Repeating this ritual
A How does the Mercy person get away from his past? We will see later
that when memories are reconnected, they can become a vision of the
future.