Mistakes and Suffering

I again and again come back to the same point. In hindsight, I look back at my decisions from a lofty vantage point, and much to my chagrin I perceive all the ways in which I might so very easily have avoided failure, distress, error, and suffering. But I return to the same realization each time: These failures have happened, and can never be undone. The thread of time cannot be unraveled, and the stream of life continues to flow as I write these very words, leaving a wake which disappears before one even has a chance to look back.

So then, the only question is: what now? It does not help to say not to regret the past, for I cannot help regretting. It also hardly helps to ask this question, for I don’t know what unpredictable turns and hazards the river of life will throw at me. The question “what now?” can only be appropriately followed by silence, the silence of action. For it is ultimately it is only our actions that can answer this question.

And when I do look back I am often filled with sadness. Everything seems to pass too quickly. The thoughts and feelings which were once so dear to us have been forgotten, and perhaps remain only lingering and dormant in the depths of the unconscious, most likely never to be stirred up again. The people we love seem to age quickly, our bodies grow and change, our hearts harden. Our memories fade and with them the images of our past become hazy and unclear, and the periods of joy which we once thought eternal pass by so quickly that we never properly acknowledge them, we never realized that they would never be again, that they would be lost forever. A smile, a kiss, a laugh, all linger but for a moment.

In looking back it is all too easy to see how things might have been different. It is easy to perceive the ways in which a single decision might have changed the course of one’s life. But I wonder if this is really a realistic assessment of life. Perhaps it is possible to look back and see how the madness, the chaos, and the numerous mistakes were inevitable. Perhaps it is possible to see all that occurs as a manifestation of the divine. It may be useful to remember that after all is said and done, we are, for the most part, left intact, and what truly matters is what we have accomplished along the way. Perhaps what we are left with, the tattered and disordered remains of our many attempts at perfection, is more perfect and beautiful than any idealized version of perfection we conjure up in our minds, and maybe even more perfect than that all too elusive notion of what might have been.