Those who forget the past are condemned to probably be a lot happier

I've been reading through old blog posts lately. Not sure why. But I want all the way back to day one and started reading (and occasionally skimming) through the whole archive. And it's...well, it's interesting, to say the very least.

A lot of is a like sitting down and flipping through a photo album, except I can't do that sort of thing, because I don't usually take pictures, and when I do, they don't end up in a photo album. But that sort stroll down memory lane is a bit like what reading blog posts from 2004 and 2005 and 2006 are like.

Sometimes all it takes is one post to drop into a mindset that I had three or four years ago. And I go, "Wow, I had almost completely forgotten about that." Sometimes I'll read something that had made me angry or depressed me, and it's written in a secretive, veiled way, so as to not potentially hurt the feelings of others involved, and I'll find myself thinking, "Wow, I don't remember what I was talking about at all."

Sometimes memory escapes us, and it's gone forever. And I'm inclined to think that sometimes that's a good thing.

I read through some very painful blog posts from around 2005 and 2006, and it just about broke my heart to have to live those moments again, if not in my own shoes, than at least in the shoes of someone nearby who had seen it all, and had known it all, and had known how it was all going to turn out.

Sometimes forgetting really is better. And sometimes loving and losing isn't all it's cracked up to be, despite what some shit-for-brains philosophers might try to tell you.

The one thing that I did find interesting were the occasional references to things that I was writing at those various points in my past. Some of them like "Dinner and Drinks" that was first mentioned in 2005, eventually went on to completion. Others were just quick references to things I can't even recall anymore. Stories that had disintegrated before they'd even made much of an impact on the paper I was putting them on.

But it got me thinking...wouldn't it be cool to be able to dig out more of those moments? To have a better record of the ideas as they come to me, as they expand, as they shift and change and either vanish or struggle their way to completion? Yes, that would be cool.

Which is why I'm going to put this here.

There's a story...or maybe it's a play, I'm still not sure yet...called "The Stain." It's about a stain that someone discovers on his carpet, except he doesn't know where it came from. Or, at least, he says he doesn't know where it came from. And as he talks to his therapist about his concerns about this stain, he gradually starts to drift towards the truth. And this stain, I think, may have something to do with rape. And not just any rape, but one of the most agonizingly awful rapes imaginable.

I'm not completely sure, but it could go that way.

Because what's the point of putting it down if it's not going to be something agonizing and awful. Whether it's a rape or a heartbreak. Whether it's fiction or it's real. Agonizingly awful is where I live. Or where I should be living. I'd probably be there a whole lot more if the decor didn't suck so goddamn much.