Your life is written in indelible ink. There's no going back to erase
the past, tweak your mistakes, or fill in missed opportunities. When
the moment’s over, your fate is sealed. But if look closer, you notice
the ink never really dries on any our experiences. They can change their
meaning the longer you look at them.There are ways of thinking about
the past that aren't just nostalgia or regret. A kind of questioning
that enriches an experience after the fact. To dwell on the
past is to allow fresh context to trickle in over the years, and fill
out the picture; to keep the memory alive, and not just as a caricature
of itself. So you can look fairly at a painful experience, and call it
by its name.
Time is the
most powerful force in the universe. It can turn a giant into someone
utterly human, just trying to make their way through. Or tell you how
you really felt about someone, even if you couldn't at the time. It can
put your childhood dreams in context with adult burdens or turn a
universal consensus into an embarrassing fad. It can expose cracks in a
relationship that once seemed perfect. Or keep a friendship going by
thoughts alone, even if you'll never see them again. It can flip your
greatest shame into the source of your greatest power, or turn a jolt of
pride into something petty, done for the wrong reasons, or make what
felt like the end of the world look like a natural part of life.
The past is still mostly a blank page, so we may be doomed to repeat it.
But it's still worth looking into if it brings you closer to the truth.
Maybe it's not so bad to dwell in the past, and muddle in the memories,
to stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it.
Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real
work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas. And remember that a
work of art is never finished, only abandoned
