The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
William Faulkner
Past
Decision : Is today the day after yesterday or the day before tomorrow?
Is today the day after yesterday or the day before tomorrow?
You can now take this little idea-stick and use it for concepts. Let’s do it with decisions.
As all we have is the “now”…
There are two types of persons, those who think in little simple boxes and let themselves trapped by words, and those who know life’s complex and moving. The first category can be divided in
- Therefore, most of wise-asses will stand up and pompously claim that “Haha, today is the day before tomorrow!!” – they make decisions watching the future.
- Some other saddened sad-pants will mourn and stop, watching the past only, the yesterday. They are mocked by 1.
Of course, my article would like to show that we need the past and the future to make decisions.
Considering the yesterday is drawing maps, spot mistakes to avoid, increase intelligence, preparing lines towards the tomorrow, inventing goals, foreseeing paths, inventing propositions. Tango!
…inspiration coming from appropriation of experience…
Have a nice day!
Mrs Fahndrich & The Cliff House
I don’t even remember how I found this little picture of the Cliff House. First I saw this woman in a dress, meditating about the sea on the sand, and liked this big strange house in the background… I was sure it was a painting.
The same morning, watching portraits made by Hugo Erfurth, I met this young woman, a romantic dreamy face, like an old Virginia Woolf cousin.
Two haunting pictures the same day. Two ladies, watching in the same direction… Maybe thinking to each other?
Hugo Erfurth (1874-1948) was a German photographer known for his portraits of celebrities of early twentieth century. I never found who Mrs Fahndrich was, but this picture was taken around 1930 (I think).
The Cliff House was a hotel near San Francisco, who survived many incidents, including explosions (!) and the big Earthquake, but burned – in 1907 (I think).
Well, nothing else, sorry. I just wanted to share what I’d call two “romantic seeds”. You get two old photographs and your imagination begins to run. Mine did anyway. What’s the story behind? What caused the fire? Who are these women?
I want to read a book on each. I want to write a book with Mrs Fahndrich visiting the hotel. Maybe causing the fire. Because of a terrible love affair. With another woman. Or her mother. Also, I find the way the hotel was build was like…. calling for disaster. Too cliffy, right?
Have a nice day!
So you trashed everything your ex offered you?
Books & Scarves, hop in the trash!
Some people, after a break up, trash everything – “It comes from my ex”.
Good!
But I’m a constructivist, thus I know things are… “things”, the value is not “into” things.
The value of things is conferred.
By me.
And by the way, this great shirt is just a great shirt.
Err I won’t trash it.
I keep things I like. A good scarf looks good on me, and it’s warm. Period.
If I have to trash my scarf, it seems to mean : “I’m haunted by the past”, right?
“I loved this scarf, but today I’m terrified by it. Kill kill kill!”
I’m not haunted by “the past into a scarf”. The past is always interesting!
And it’s not into a thing.
If someone offered me a book, I will keep it as a good sign. And read it.
Good things stay good things : I just CAN decide it’s this way.
So I keep good things, in some states of mind :
- This comes from a good moment, that built me.
- I’m not “haunted” by imaginary feelings included in the thing.
- It’s useful and I like it.
- Dramaqueening is for teens.
“My now bf/gf is bothered by my ex’s things”. What about your body, then?
“What if my ex is now my enemy?”. What? Really? OK then. Trash your shirt. This book too. Voilà. Done. And now? Hmm? Feeling better? Any change? Anywhere?
I have some paintings on my wall which were given to me more than 25 years ago (by an ex). I have so many books. Yes : scarves, pens, a lamp, whatever. My mind-house is built on old stories. I love it!
And it’s a windy winter, brrrr…
You can also read :
Thanks for reading!
An Ardent Patience & Depuzzlement Processes : seeds in Chronicle 29
People underestimate kids, right?
- Someone hears a sound, and doesn’t understand what it is about
- Then hears it’s a voice – of unknown words
- Then hears it’s his language, but doesn’t understand the phrases
- Then gets the phrases, but doesn’t get what one is talking about
- Then understands and stands up
Les enfants aux ailes de rue – Street-Winged Children.
It’s time to repost this : Some French feel-good movies to choose from
Exploring mood? Google “Best Albums 2017”. I’m on it! What are yours?
In a conversation about things and events and ideas, do you focus on the sense and the logic, or on what you feel, the specifics? That’s a real question…
Oh, both, dear : naturally. How to weave/dance? Finding invariances in the particulars…
Serenity as a sign of love.
A good friend, or your child, has a problem, an hesitation. Needs you. You then develop a big bubble of attention, a gigantic ear. You focus & try to ask questions – useless or trappy or good questions. The purpose is to help him/her to give birth to a solution – to help the depuzzlement process…
À l’aurore, armés d’une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes.
In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities.
Arthur Rimbaud
Here’s a secret (or a question) :
People have different burdens, different ways to be bereaved (“deprived of loved ones”).
I remember telling a friend, in a letter, more than twenty years ago, about my difficulties with my lover, who had lost her mother at the age of 11.
“Go to the cemetery, with her”, she answered. Ohhh…
There are many types of bereavement : death, cutting bonds because of serious misconduct, friendship loss, remoteness… It creates, I’m sure, a black veil, with a crow under. Who can pinch. It’s maybe our responsibility to come close to the veil and whisper : “Let’s go to the cemetery”.
Talking about a dark past, wrong choices from people you loved, or the loss of a mother. Holding up (a little) the veil. See if there’s a sail under, ready to inflate and breathe. Or not.
Who will be the one who says : “Let’s talk about the past”? What can it bring? What if the answer is “No, never”?
Forgetting the past to move forward is like to erase maps and the knowledge on the maps.
My friend was a teacher for kids “with big problems”. She wrote me a long letter about these children who became worried – thus violent – when they began to understand that a special freedom comes from… learning. Then, she said, they go on, and calm down.
Interesting situation, when you want the balance to change but the other one doesn’t want the balance to change.
Funnier : you want to change something, but the other one wants to change another thing. Here you are both of you pushing on different doors…
Dervishes
Dervishes
Thanks for reading!
Changing the past is a cool way to be mean
Changing the past is a cool way to be mean!
Imagine you are with an ex-lover. You have a good opportunity to be nasty-bitchy! Of course, you don’t love each other anymore, these things happen all the time, right? No big deal.
But you can add something today, with the help of words :
Change the past!
(OK, in fact you will NOT change the past, it’s not really something you can do, right?)
You just have to tell your ex that… what you lived together was : (here, you have many possibilities : “fake”, “a lie”, “wrong”, “difficult”, “a mistake”, etc).
What you lived was great, at the time, you know it, OK? You showed it and lived it, and you said it too. Now : you just say the contrary, change the past, say you were “incompatible”, or that you “faked it”, etc… You’ll find your way. She just has to understand that she disappointed you.
Of course, this has no other purpose than to be mean, OK?
The consequences are cool :
- You ex will have a painful moment of doubt, like “OMG maybe he’s right, it was faked, all incompatibility and blindness”.
- Then she’ll be hurt by the fact that she could really live all this love story like an illusion.
- Then she’ll be hurt by the loss of good memories, which will now turn into bitterness. “OH then it was not true??!”.
- Then, after a while, she’ll remember, she’ll realize that, well, “we were probably REALLY happy”, then she’ll be hurt to realize that her ex told her that… to be mean.
- Then she’ll be more hurt to try to understand WHY this ex-lover would like to be this mean to her…
Whatever : you reached your goal.
Almost.
Because, well, there’s probably some gold left, in her heart. She knows. And, by Jove!, it was a cool love story!
Well, you can now add some points by talking about how cool is your life now. Without her, of course. Justifies the means. This works pretty well.
The other part (changing the past) does not work for a long time. Gold is there, has been discovered, and no magic (but death) can kill the gold. She already forgave him. She is grateful. Love is a good energy, after all, right?
Thanks for reading!
Old Letters Old Diaries
You can choose to move forward all the time – you go girl ! – but you can sometimes slow down a bit and add something to your moveforwardice : read your old pages, some letters from the past, or your diary; watch your steps in the sand, watch your soil.
I wrote my maison-page for twelve years (it’s in French sorryyy) and from time to time, once a month maybe, I read some parts of it, randomly. Some days, I find and read all the emails I wrote “the same day but one year before”.
It’s amazing how useful it can be, at times, to read what your wrote in the past. It helps you a lot, and in many ways. The more you know your path, your soil, your roots… the more what ?
You realise things : you have a tendency to make the same mistakes, you act along patterns. Your realise that your thoughts are like seeds, or little machines : they grow, mutate, change colors. you evolved. You are not the same person anymore… but you are, though.
It’s just as simple as a chest, a safe. You can find, in a awe, some great ideas your learned in the past and forgot in the wind of the years. De bonnes idées oubliées dans le passé…
Tool : Write, and keep what you write. Letters, articles, emails, blogs and diaries. When in need, plunge down back into this shit. You’ll be disturbed (you need to be). You’ll even discover things (like for the first time but not really, which is as good as a perfect Koan). You’ll smell your good soil and find probably some good old seeds – use them today.
If you don’t, don’t be surprised you sometimes look like a pale tree growing on some bland savourless nutritive liquid in the white tent of a greenhouse.
(oh snap I’m losing my english)
a french toolbox 