A Journey into the Past
Today I begin a visit into the past. The specifics of which I will save unto myself; until that time the visit is over, and goodbyes have begun.
Am I preparing for and practicing for senility? Have I already begun senility? Perhaps; but I don't think so. As I explain that question to myself, the difference lays in the choosing; I choose to forgo a daily piece of the present; to willingly resist it's seemingly vivid seduction so the particular aspects of the past I seek to visit will dominate a portion of my everyday focus. As long as I am master of the on and off switch of memory, I remain actively pre-senile.
Besides, I look forward to visiting the past. It hovers like a soft, inviting cloud, high up on horizon, inviting me to sit and lounge while I look down on my silly self.
Am I wasting my energy? Shouldn't I be focused on the present, where they say the seeds of the future are best sown; and eventually harvested?
Maybe I am just getting old; deciding I have little effect on the present, why waste my energy...the present has been co-opted by the young, and their certainty. Age brings doubt, or at least pondering, and during that pause of reflection and assessment, youth's ever confident minions race aggrandizing past me? Whereas the past seems fixed. It offers the possibility of reflection; images are not racing so fast past the mirror that it leaves no presently tranmitting image.
Maybe I realize the present has little if no effect on the future. One best lives the present by remembering the past. My future is my past. The past wrote my book; I am just reading it in my daily activities.
Tomorrow is the mirror image of yesterday's events. As Plato said, the apotheosis of life, the purpose of life's present journey, is the discovery of self, the climax of of final self-recognition.
I look forward (backward?) to the coming release.
Am I preparing for and practicing for senility? Have I already begun senility? Perhaps; but I don't think so. As I explain that question to myself, the difference lays in the choosing; I choose to forgo a daily piece of the present; to willingly resist it's seemingly vivid seduction so the particular aspects of the past I seek to visit will dominate a portion of my everyday focus. As long as I am master of the on and off switch of memory, I remain actively pre-senile.
Besides, I look forward to visiting the past. It hovers like a soft, inviting cloud, high up on horizon, inviting me to sit and lounge while I look down on my silly self.
Am I wasting my energy? Shouldn't I be focused on the present, where they say the seeds of the future are best sown; and eventually harvested?
Maybe I am just getting old; deciding I have little effect on the present, why waste my energy...the present has been co-opted by the young, and their certainty. Age brings doubt, or at least pondering, and during that pause of reflection and assessment, youth's ever confident minions race aggrandizing past me? Whereas the past seems fixed. It offers the possibility of reflection; images are not racing so fast past the mirror that it leaves no presently tranmitting image.
Maybe I realize the present has little if no effect on the future. One best lives the present by remembering the past. My future is my past. The past wrote my book; I am just reading it in my daily activities.
Tomorrow is the mirror image of yesterday's events. As Plato said, the apotheosis of life, the purpose of life's present journey, is the discovery of self, the climax of of final self-recognition.
I look forward (backward?) to the coming release.
posted by Cliff Osmond at 2:17 PM
1 Comments:
ASTONISHING!!!
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