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I’ve always been fascinated by humanity somehow gaining and then losing the ability to do something throughout human history. Time does not always cause progress. I fear it in my own life on a micro scale. From time to time, I open up my own archives in the form of bizarre old blog posts often written in an extreme mental state to see what patterns I’ve missed or insights I’ve lost. Usually, it feels lightly entertaining and gives me more compassion for my former self. Sometimes though I come across something and am shocked that I have managed to lose track of it, especially since the pattern repeats to this day. It feels as though in my own life there have been dark ages.

As I like to remind myself when life inevitably repeats (and as I’ve read in a number of books), it’s a chance to choose differently and to revisit a part of myself that still needs some extra love/attention/compassion/healing.

Separate but related, why do I feel a need to remember? Not everyone carries this desire with them. What does remembering take from me? What does remembering give me? Even if it does seem to give me something, I recognize it’s an illusion. Perhaps instead of shock and frustration upon finding a pattern I lost sight of, I can simply thank myself for writing it down somewhere in the first place.

I started gathering a list of insights on my phone a few months back, determined to remember. Whenever I add a new item, I read through the rest as if I’ll be quizzed on it later. In writing this I realize, it’s safety I’m after. That’s the illusion I’m seeking. Safety through self insight.