Friday, September 19, 2008

Regrets

I heard a speaker this week who said that there's no reverse in life, that we can't go back, so we just need to focus on the future and move forward with a positive outlook. Something like that.

At first this sounded fine, but I'm now convinced that this is much too narrow a view of life. Of course there's a reverse in life! We can't redo anything physically, but if life were only physical, then this whole exercise would be pointless. If I regretted 2/3 of my past and made those regrets central to my present, I'd be perfectly satisfied. I think that this is not only supported rationally, but doctrinally.

1 comments:

Gordon said...

One additional note on this idea - from poems I just read by Mr. Li-Young Lee:

you can't love except by remembering
(from "Restless" in Book of My Nights)

And if there is love there is
no forgetting, but regret rending
two shaggy hearts.
(from "Always a Rose" in Rose)