Speaking of ideals and ideologies, when it refers to the
   individual (I'm an individualist); one becomes enraptured by an
   idea that resonates with something within. They may wrap
   themselves totally up into the ideology, join groups, form
   connections, do things.

   Then... they leave the ideology. They move on. They do other
   things.

   But what happened to the idea? Where did the ideological system
   go once someone abandons it?

   Well, they lose the baggage around it. The specific word forms,
   the constructions, the manners that were unique to that
   ideology.

   But the idea and the systems they constructed within, remain.

   They become a part of who you are and how you think and you
   don't always even see it happening.

   I had a shock experience the other day - cognitive dissonance. I
   don't get them often anymore so it's weird/awesome when they do.

   I believed for years that I had read/experience Osho as a
   teenager. I've been going through my life, chronicling
   everything and went through all of my past purchases on Amazon.

   I thought I knew my life story pretty well at that point.

   But no: The purchase of the books that influenced me so, were in
   1999 - some of the 1st books I bought on Amazon. I couldn't
   believe it! By that point, I was, I dunno, 27, 28 yrs old. Not a
   teenager at all.

   How could my memory fool me like that? It took a day of "woah"
   and fighting the dissonance while I was doing normal everyday
   stuff to reconcile it.

   It's because the ideology, while losing the baggage, BECAME how
   I spoke, how I thought, informed concepts already existing
   within and expanding them in different directions.

   While it built upon what I already thought... my memory
   backfilled the past and placed this guy's writings as 10 years
   EARLIER in my personal history.

   Hard to explain the experience. If you've ever seen "The
   Butterfly Effect" or Inception... yeah, it was one of those
   moments. Disturbing but amazing at the same time.