A short thought on the subject of "forgetting". Normally, it is looked at as being negative – you suppress, you lose, you miss … At the same time, there has to be something salutary in it, to forget and therefore gain a distance to your own past. However, at the same time, it is important to take responsibility for one's past, which only works if it remains in the consciousness. How can this be reconciled? A different word was suggested to me once: "I unlearn my past." This contains a different quality. Knowing what was, without being shackled to it. Being able to think about past events without agitation nor illusion, only knowledge. This is what inner freedom would feel like.

April 6th, 2012