Funny how time works to help you get back on your feet. Not that I believe I’ve actually fallen on my ass before. But memory is a funny thing. Sometimes, even in the pits of the pits, if you absolutely have to be honest with yourself, you realize that there are some things you don’t ever wanna learn to forget. For a variety of reasons. Or simply just because.
Listening to the Love Actually soundtrack doesn’t do any wonders for me anymore. And not just coz it's so 2005. I can’t remember how I used to see visions of the now-forgotten whenever Eva Cassidy’s “Songbird” would play. I no longer feel like putting Maroon 5’s “The Sweetest Goodbye” on insta-replay. But don't get me wrong, the whole album’s still great, I love it. I’m just not moved by anything anymore.
My sassy friend Anna said living in the present is, for all intents and purposes, the best thing we can do for ourselves. But what if the present is anything but where you wanna be? No matter how it’s turned out, the past can be a well of wisdom and wonders, if you know where to look. And I’ve always thought the future is just super if you put enough faith in it, and in yourself. Besides, our capitalist culture doesn’t exactly make daily life conducive for such real-time living. Here in the RP, not all things are bright and beautiful. In corporate-landia, downtime in any shape and form is a waste of time and opportunity. Boost productivity, supercharge your bottom-line, and you’re on your way. Thinking at least two steps ahead is de rigeur. It’s get with the program or get your ass kicked. And to expand your vision, you have to start living it.
Because life is a really icky mess of processes (for lack of a better term), even the realm of the personal isn’t spared. Guilt trips are endemic in relationships. Behind every success story is a nagging seed of doubt that tells you if you aren’t careful, you could be setting yourself up for a debilitating fall. In Zen-like manner,
Anna’s mom tells her to diss the guilt, and I wonder just how messed up can I be to be so utterly confused by the concept. When you think about it, the period between the before and after is the least reliable of all timeframes, precisely because it's in the here and now and we can still do something about it but for some reason, which I would attribute to human frailty, we don't. Or we mess up. The right way the whole
carpe diem thing is supposedly done is to check all baggage, as well as expectations founded on experience or insight, at the door and just, well, live. But the thing is, life isn't all about the good times. (Lucky you if it is.) So of course it’s never that easy. Nothing is. Living in the eternal present is actually more work than it looks, and if anyone’s succeeded in doing this--like really really--I’d appreciate sticky notes on the topic.
