Gone With the Wind.....Not Exactly

When I was clearing out my stepdad's workshop, I was kinda thinking of Dante and the warning over the entrance to Hell: 

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. 

But in my case, it was looking out of the door rather than in that made the difference.  That's when I had a moment of whimsy, and there just happened to be a ladder and a pot of paint nearby.  I climbed up and painted free hand on the lintel above the inside of door: 

Don't look back.  There is no tomorrow behind you.

It's a line from a song called Saukura Sake.  There's more that I didn't paint but that I was surely thinking about those hopeful words at the time:

Have the energy to grab even a hazy mirage
Now if you scatter the seeds, the flowers will bloom　

.....It's something that will take a lot of time　

In the spring, big flowers will bloom
.....So that I won't be defeated,

so that I won't be crushed, I'll sing now*

It's right to turn the other way, to look forward into the future.  The past should not be your dwelling place and most emphatically never your vacation spot.  But the fact of the matter is that it is a corner that you should drive round every now again and again just so you can see where you've been so you can take stock of where you are at the current moment. 

If I recall properly, it was Aristotle who said,

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Maybe that seems a little harsh but I think it's about awareness--being aware of who and where and how we are makes a difference to how well we live our lives and how well we relate to others.

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.....you know, I have to admit that I was moving forward on a really good thought that was actually headed somewhere worthwhile until my wretched computer demanded a restart for an update that had to take place ASAP.

Whatever I was thinking has fled my head forever. 
Ah well. 
I dunno. 

As Scarlett O'Hara said (and I don't even care for that movie nor the book),

Tomorrow I'll think of some way...

after all, tomorrow is another day.

 

Better yet, I think I'll quote Winnie the Pooh,

Oh, bother!

 

Yeah, that's sums it up nicely.  Thanks, Pooh.



Life is good.
Updates can be annoying.




*translation adapted from Yarukizero