Let the Pain Go

Nathaniel: "You're not even grateful, are you?"

David: "Grateful? For the worst f*cking experience of my life."

Nathaniel: "You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well, let me tell you, it's not worth sh*t. Let it go...(looks up to the sky) Infinite possibilities and all he can do is whine."

David: "Well what am I supposed to do?"

Nathaniel: "What do you think? You can do anything you lucky bastard, you're alive! What's a little pain compared to that?"

David: "It can't be that simple."

Nathaniel: "What if it is?"

- Six Feet Under. HBO television series Season 4 finale.

The Past Can Change

"The idea that the past is unchangeable is a myth . .(It) may not change in its details, but the meaning, the understanding, the interpretation of them as part of a larger life can change."

- Joseph Gold. Read for Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System. Fitzhenry and Whiteside: Markham, 1990. pg 86

Stay Between the Shores

You know a dream is like a river
Ever changing as it flows.
And a dreamer's just a vessel
That must follow where it goes.
Trying to learn from what's behind you
And never knowing what's in store
Makes each day a constant battle
Just to stay between the shores.
-Garth Brooks, "The River"

Don't Run

“Time don’t go back, it goes forward
Can’t run from the pain, go towards it
Some days can’t be explained what caused it.”
- Jay-Z “Lost One” from the album “Kingdom Come”

Sometimes running away from pain doesn’t help us. We need to confront pain and deal with it. We can’t focus on the past and we can’t dwell on the bad things in life. This quote and verse from an excellent song is inspiring because of that.

Obscuring the Present

“Taking his cue from author and painter Wyndham Lewis’s observation that the “present cannot be revealed until it has become yesterday,” McLuhan points out individuals see only the past as part and parcel of what he termed “the rear-view mirror phenomenon” obscuring the present and obliterating the future.” Judith Fitzgerald, Marshall McLuhan: Wise Guy. XYZ Publishing: Montreal, 2001. pg 3

I like the phrase “obscuring the present.” Focusing too much on the past or the future does just that. I think that we need to live in the present and to realize that it is a gift. Of course, this really does take a lot of effort. We work all our lives to get out of debt, to earn the things we want. We look back at the good times we had, or the bad times that steered us in certain directions. Most people don’t really focus on the right now. It’s about time that we all did.