The Past

The past regrets steal our happiness in living well.

Our life is written in indelible ink. There is no Doremon's door to go back or any magic to erase the past memories or mistakes. When the moment is over, it is over and is sealed in our past. But if we look carefully, we notice the ink never really dries on any of our experiences. They can change their meaning the longer we look at them. They would sometimes tell us that it happened for our good while on the other way, it will push you to the past decision to regret.

And we humans have a brain, that can store a whole universe in it, and for god sake, we use it more for hurting ourselves by keeping going back in our leisure time.

We paint our own life like a landscape, like a sunset view by blending different colors of emotions. We write our own story by that ink which once stains the page then can never be erased. It's just like our examination, as soon as the time's up, the answer sheets are snatched from us and we will score only what we have already written there. Even if we know that we have made a silly mistake but we won't get our answer sheet back to change our answer. The same happens in our life. Not only this, it has a tick-tock wall clock, where you have to finish your work within the time span, if you lose it, you will regret.

To dwell on our 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 a caricature of itself. So we can look fairly at a painful experience and call it by its name. Yeah, it's just like our family picture hanging up on the wall, which shows the affections amongst the members and reflects the memories even after the members' demise. Their smiling faces remind us of the beautiful time we had spent with them. Sometimes it brings a smile but most of the time it brings tears. That might be a tear of joy or tear of their absence. But still, we dwell on our past because we are humans and we cannot stop doing it until we stop breathing.

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. Sometimes we don't believe in harsh truth because of the trust we have in our closed ones. But later on, after contemplating deeper, we come closer to the truth we were escaping from. Hence, the dwelling isn't bad either.

Maybe it's not at all bad to dwell in the past and muddle in the memories to stem the simplification of time and put some craft back into it. If it gives us memories to cry, it also gives us the strength to fight and learn.

Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form. And the real work of art begins the moment the paint hits the canvas. We can never complete art. That is always unfinished, no matter how much perfection you give to that piece, it can never be said as complete. A real and the most beautiful art can never be finished, its always abandoned.