Friday, October 23, 2009
Nostalgia
Why do things always seem better after you are 10 years removed from the situation? Music, relationships, life in general...all seem so much better once they are all relegated to the cobwebbed section of your mind. Memory has a way of erasing the negative and accentuating the positive. If only the mind would allow things to look so shiny/happy when you are actually living in the moment. Anyway, I always wondered why when I hear a song that brings me back a decade or more, I get this warm, fuzzy feeling when I know damn well I had just as many problems and worries (and probably more) than I do now. At least I can tell myself I am older and wiser than I was back in the day. So here is Lyte and Missy taking me back to the '90s groove. Ahh the 1990s, things were soooo much better then. Yeah right! Well actually the music was MUCH better than the crap passing for entertainment these days. That much no one can argue with!
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4 comments:
You'll get no argument from me. Most of the music these days stink to high heaven.
"I get this warm, fuzzy feeling when I know damn well I had just as many problems and worries (and probably more) than I do now."
Here's some consolation: You'll get the same "fuzzy feeling" ten years from now, and you'll swear then that you weren't living in nirvana, or Shangrila ten years ago.
Your memory is working as it was designed: To blend the good with the bad, so that you may reap the euphoria that that produces.
When you die, you will be able to do this far more richly.
You have stumbled upon one of life's little secrets. Heaven is not the absence of Evil and the presence of Good, it's the blending of Good and Evil in memory.
You might say, therefore: Heaven is what you remember.
That's why you rarely entertain any moment as you describe it: "Memory has a way of erasing the negative and accentuating the positive. If only the mind would allow things to look so shiny/happy when you are actually living in the moment."
Rather than "erasing the negative," it blends it with the positive for a much greater effect.
No moment will ever be as "shiny" in real time, as in memory: It takes memory to blend the two elements, the two polarities: negative and positive, Good and Evil.
BD...you are deep, very deep. Sometimes it is intimidating how deep you are. It's late at night and I am trying to wrap my head around the concepts you put forth.
We had a similar discussion a while ago on another blog. I am going to do a post on spirituality pretty soon and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
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Rather than "erasing the negative," it blends it with the positive for a much greater effect.
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So are you saying the negative is negated when the positive is posited? ;)
@Ernesto: "So are you saying the negative is negated when the positive is posited? ;)"
Not quite. And the humor is not lost on me. :) Both polarities are present, and are needed, but neither is allowed to overwhelm the other.
Basically, you're blending the two, so that the Good is not good, and the Evil is not evil, and the Positive is not positive, and the Negative is not negative.
This blending creates something else, something greater than the sum of the two, and this "something else" is what is called bliss, or ecstasy.
We're told to know ourselves, and to embrace all that we are: the good and the bad, the positive and the negative.
Self-flagellation (mentally or physically) is self-defeating. What you resist, persists.
And those who insist that renunciation and repudiation of their dark side is the way to enlightenment are taking a long, arduous path. It's just not necessary.
Embracing the totality of who and what you are yields more fruit, although no path can be said to be better than another. It all depends on what you're trying to do.
But, at some point, it serves your interest to embrace the fullness of yourself, and deny nothing.
There's a reason for that: Part of that reason you've already tapped into, or remembered, the other is that you can't change any part of who you are, unless you own it all (the Good and the bad), or own up to it.
"I am going to do a post on spirituality pretty soon and I look forward to hearing your thoughts."
A great idea. And I look forward to sharing.
BD...Oh wise one, I'm still trying to digest all of what you said and slowly breaking it down piece by piece. For the life of me, I wish I could fully appreciate living in the moment and not taking all that is good for granted in the here and now, while playing up the worries and negative things, which fade to nothing soon after. I am trying to teach myself to appreciate what is for all that it is...but I'm a lousy student.
"When you die, you will be able to do this far more richly."
An intriguing thought! A higher plane of consciousness awaits? Since I was young, I always had a feeling that life was but one level on a much larger structure. And it seems to be a level on the lower floors sometimes...
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