Whatever we do

 

Bus terminus, Atwater and Ste. Catherine Street,
1956

The dead are not thinking of you 

they are dead, so you don’t have to 

think about them, you don't have to worry

about what you did or what

you didn't do, they are

at peace wherever 

they are

                                         ————————————————-

Whatever we think, whoever we like or dislike, it all refers back to ourselves, the dead are not thinking about you, and if we regret what we did or what we didn't do, whatever the case, give it up, surrender to time, to what could or might have been, let it all go, let it all disappear into time, nothing in the past can be changed and we select our memories, they are not real, they are memories, they aren't real, our regrets, what we would or should have done differently, who we loved and who we didn't love, who was mean and who was friendly, let it all go, it is only going to hold you back because it is all transient, changing, subject to change, ephemeral, evanescent, forlorn, and hopeless, and let it all go, forgive yourself, that's what you can do, forgive yourself and live in the so-called present but it isn't the present if it has a shadow of the past falling on it, darkening life, darkening our souls, and forgive yourself. The dead don't hold grudges against you or disapprove of what you have done or didn't do, the dead are dead and they have moved on, to nothing or to whatever we have invented for them to move on to. Whatever we think, whatever happened, you can do nothing about any of it, but you can forgive those who betrayed you, hurt you, disappointed you, and you can forgive yourself for what you have done or didn't do, and thank those who helped you, loved you, helped you along the way in your life's journey, but as for the dead, they're dead and gone except in your thoughts..           

On impermanence

 

The thing is to accept (and even like) the very thing about life that upsets one the most because we are moving irreconcilably to death. And that is the impermanence of life. We can't freeze life to when we were most happy. We continue on and on and then we reflect on the past, on when we were happy but, perhaps, didn't know it. We weren't self-conscious in our happiness. It doesn't work that way; we think back, we're nostalgic creatures, and we fix on a time when we were most happy, or we think we were. We fight our emotions and ideas of self-reproachment, we beat them down! Why are we even having them? Because self-reproachment is an act of depression and we live with more or less mild depression all of the time. And we remember the past and wish we could live on an island of unself-consciousness and unreflected happiness. Is it a hallucination? Does it make any sense? We are sad, we grieve for what we had. We hate impermanence. And we are too old to suffer more impermanence, more change. What to do? What to do? 

                                                                                        16 April 2023