LIVING BACKWARDS

As I pack my Freedom Express in preparation for our extended journey I’m reminded of the days I lived as a free spirit. I look back on my life and can still feel the absence of burden on my shoulders, the delight of fishing and hunting for my supper, the friendships of other like-minded people, the relentless energy felt daily, and the knowledge that I had my whole life ahead of me. I think of the past a lot. And I wonder where AnnaLee is hiding.


It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived - forwards. However, I believe that the farther backward you look, the farther forward you are able to see. The sad thing is that you will only understand life once you've lived it, but you have to live it blindfolded.



Sometimes we grow in one dimension and not in another. Unevenly so to speak. We grow partially. We may be mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present.

At times it seems that I am living my life backward and with the approach of old age my real youth will begin. My life has covered me with wrinkles... wrinkles that hardships and worries have put there and that I have had the greatest trouble keeping at bay and can never be removed. Along with the visible wrinkles are invisible scars. You can't escape the scars of history, or the needs and neuroses you've picked up along the way.


Living backwards is confusing at first. However, one's memory works both ways. It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. A walk along with Alice through the looking glass has taught us that.


Chasing the past, I stumbled into the future. I have come to realize that when I am anxious about leaving on a journey it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed because I am going nowhere it is because I am living in the past. Having spent the better part of my life trying either to relive the past or experience the future before it arrives, I have come to believe that in-between these two extremes... is peace.



 
 
 
 
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