You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future or a different past.
Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
It’s taken me a while to get back to Wendy’s three quote challenge, just as it has taken me a while to get back to writing. But that’s another challenge; another story.
Folks have argued with me about this quote – that we aren’t free to choose a different self-history, or that the past is the past; immutable.
Sure, unless we are shape-shifting time travelers or populate Star Trekian worlds, the concept of “changing our pasts” seems an impossible, whimsical perhaps dangerous farce.
But we are free to change how we interpret; interact with; understand and project/remembory our pasts. And the histories of others. And those that intertwine; choke; envelope; or blossom within our own.
I am growing in my own understanding of life lived/not lived. I can mine my past for new veins of blood and ore. I can change the narrative I chose to follow.
I spent my lifetime replaying the unpleasant, the shameful, the pain-filled images from first memory on in a Mobius loop of self-hatred; self-punishment; self-misunderstood/mis-interpreted; and self-denial.
Only 50 plus years on have I gained a modicum of wisdom; enough to begin to forgive, forget, let go. See not only the negative (or shift the narrative so only the negative remains foregrounded).
So, I am choosing a different past; not a re-write like my evil grandmother’s family history set to the tune of only her liking; but a gentler view, a tao of the past less downtrodden and worried ragged.
And through that choice, perhaps the strength to imagine a future; to learn to wish, dream, and hope. Nothing needs be immutable. There are those past “facts,” and then there is each kaleidoscope I choose to view them through.
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Karl Marx.
(see installment three . . . upcoming . . . . )
illustration: Good Reads
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June 11, 2018 at 1:14 am
excellent! I am so liking your thoughts. You have grown so much the past couple of years I’m so very proud of you. xo
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June 11, 2018 at 5:30 pm
Right back at ya! You have flowered and bloomed. The southwest may be when you grow even more flower stems.
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June 7, 2018 at 6:17 pm
I think, as you’ve noted, and are learning to accept and embrace – it IS possible to shift and change – to understand past – especially personal pasts, from different vantage points, self-awareness in understanding etc. To learn to shift – which means we grow – and learn to refocus the lens – it’s all in the perspectives. And for those that argue otherwise? to be sure, “facts” are “facts” – take a knife and slice into a finger and it bleeds …. okay. So some of it can’t be viewed as anything other than what was – but learning to live with the unchanging, the unchangeable and immutable is part of the process of adaptation. And much like plants, adaptation is key – otherwise, you stagnate and eventually, the evolution as it wills and dictates, will sweep you aside, or drown you. So yes, it IS possible – not always easy to walk and learn – and it certainly is Time process, never-ending – but as some “wise” person said (memory blank right now) – the problem is not the problem itself, but rather we focus on it – and are always talking about the problems. As opposed to talking about our joys and pleasures as well. Shift the focus, like a camera’s lens, and a new world comes into view.
wonderful post and highly “intelligent” for all you’ve come to know, learn and understand – and I appreciate you sharing it here – for your honesty.
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June 7, 2018 at 8:49 pm
Thanks. It grew, too, out of our “talks,” the experience with the locker, and certain stories that I choose to see the down side, not the up side.
Yes, shift the focus, like a camera lens, and a new world does come into view.
And, yes, you slice a finger and it bleeds; but the why, how, and when can be open to interpretation then and now and tomorrow.
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June 7, 2018 at 9:02 pm
true – about the finger – but in the end, the finger is still bleeding, so what do you do, now, in the moment?
sometimes we just have to let the whole shebang “go” – and for every witness to an event, circumstance, unfolding, there is a story – as unique as each’s fingerprints and eye colours – which means many stories and interpretations – and ultimately, who is to say, which is the “truth” or the “right” version? Perhaps the “understanding” comes from just accepting “it” for what it is – and event, circumstance – and it will be as we choose to experience it – dynamic, exciting, stagnant, horrible etc. (right, not to dismiss something “traumatic as “less than” or lightly, of course) but then, maybe some of this is about learning to nurture and be supportive, without trying to impress either on ourselves, or others, just one particular point of view.
I’ll be stumped if I have any concrete answers.
And sometimes, actually, the “best” course of action, much like in creating, whether in words, paints, outside in a garden, baking etc. is knowing when to step back, and say – it is “done” …. and let “nature take its course” – which she will anyway, whether we’re on board or not!
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