I read a beautiful post this morning from @vanyaix on X. The difficulty in looking backwards, the happiness lost to old wounds. The smoke of a memory blowing in the wind. The past is as real as we make it. Romanticized, fantastic memories that evoke emotion strong enough to distract us from what is happening, what has happened. There is beauty in the past. You may let the beauty seduce you, consume you, keep you, but this is to die to the present, to the future, to be stagnant, ignorant of inevitable change. At times, it is impossible to release the past. Then, the moment passes and it is possible again. You step forward, moving, living with momentum. The past only consumes you if you consume the past.
Embracing change is empowering. Grand ambitions, the greatest achievements, an art to living. These are not born out of falling into the past. These erupt from the volcano that is walking with a spring in your step, cutting into the chance you are enjoying, being alive. It is a great opportunity and easy to ignore.
This is on my mind.
I dated a lovely girl for over three years. We moved in together after two weeks. There was a global pandemic, it made sense to shack up. It was nice, it became nicer. It became less nice. It became tolerable. I became cold, preserving myself, for better or worse, staying. It eventually became worse again and continued. We both became worse, it was time to leave.
The mind plays tricks
When I reduce the significant past to a handful of sentences, it is easy to keep it moving. Keep it moving comes from @brutedeforce. An idea of his that has stuck to me is that forgetting past, each day, carving out your future is the best way to realize the great power you have in creating your reality. I prefer this. It seems almost cruel at first. The past has made you into who you are now. Without the past, you would be different, if at all. There must be a use of the past, something that will allow you to become even more, but the greatest growth comes from actually growing.
Even if you had a grand realization that is born of a past event, the event is not what is valuable. What you do with that event is what is valuable. This is on my mind. What made me leave the girl does me no good. Living with great pride in having left, living with great pride in the possibility and excitement of now and what comes next does me good. The realization must be realized, else, it sinks you into the past, the power becoming fleeting, fading into reveries.
Again, it seems cruel. There is a hardness that is cultivated here, an ability to reflect without indulgence. Somewhere, we have been taught that reflection is one of the greatest capabilities, but we forget that it blinds us from our present, our future. Regrets are born out of inaction. Inaction comes from being stuck, loyal, to the past. It is tempting to give into the seductive lure of the past. It gives the mind and soul a warm feeling of comfort, the sensation that this has happened. The sensation is tangible because there is no anticipation, no space to be filled. It is a full vessel of plastid memory, changing shape, again, and again, until it becomes what will give us comfort. This isn’t real.
And so, what is real? Today, right now, is real. Why forfeit it for anything else, even the future? The future isn’t real, the past is dead, we have now. But that isn’t what is on my mind.
To be happy
If the past has to be released, then what is it to be happy? The enjoyment of what is happening around you now is a greater sensation than any lament could ever be. Think back on a romanticized memory, realize where the romanticizing occurs, and finally, challenge yourself to see the clarity of that moment. The reality of it is what we yearn for. That is why there is such theatre around a single moment. A symphony of false realities that seem true, a orchestration of a created past. It is not that we can’t trust ourselves, but that we must keep it moving.
Even if we are elaborating the past, even if we see it with clarity, it still obscures what is happening, what is to come. Life must be lived. Only you can live your life, only I can live my life. So live. Do not sink into the follies of what has happened, but make what becomes. You will find great pleasures, great challenges, great triumphs. It is exactly what you make it. For months, I yearned to live in Pacific Heights. Now I live in Pacific Heights and I write this to release the past and finally enjoy what resonates with me, what is, the way I want to live this gorgeous life I am granted.
It is an opportunity to be alive, indulge. Don’t fantasize over tartare and wine, eat it, drink it. Don’t fantasize over reading books during the work day, meeting gorgeous women during the night, consume it, make it happen, enjoy it. To be happy is to be taking action, to be in motion, because you have set yourself in motion. I’m not sure if every action will bring me happiness, but I’m sure that action brings me happiness. A life in motion, an art to living, day and night.
An indulgence
It started as a spark, lit by a match. Met by wicker, it developed into a flame, spreading into kindling, becoming fire. Blown on by the wind, spat on by the rain, it danced, realizing that the rain and wind were not forces from the outside. The fire danced and danced. It rose, it fell, it bloomed, it decayed, it did them all, again and again. Until it ceased to rise. It only fell. And fell, and fell. It got quieter. Quick shouts of defiance. Violent defiance, a direction undeterminable. The outside forces push, the fire defies them in vain.
It fights, it loses, it fights, it secedes. It struggles, it hopes, it hopes again, the glimmer is so brilliant. It loses once more, and more again, and again, until it can lose no more. The flame sputters. The slightest blue ember remains. Atlas, holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. Shrugging. The wind whispers and puts it out. The smoke follows the wind, away, somewhere else, not where the flame once was.
The shrubbery remains. It decays into the soil, it rests. There once was something, something spectacular. Now there is nothing.
Time passes, there is something more than nothing. Time resumes, the something is becoming more than something. Grass blooms. the sun rises, the birds chirp. Light refracts off the grass, the trees, the wildlife. Ambitions are born, born to be realized. New sparks ignite, bringing new fires, new life. Possibility happens, it is real. An entire world becomes real, and becomes real, as each second becomes, a world in harmony, in unison with the moment, that keeps moving. There is no future, there is no past, there is only now. Keep it moving.