If you have Beethoven's "moonlight sonata", you might want to play it while reading the rest of this post --- it was what I thought to listen while writing what follows.
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I often discover mistakes in my older posts --- punctuation errors, ungrammatical constructions, incomplete ideas, incoherent paragraphs, impulsive conclusions or unnecessary drama. I was careless; after all, it's a blog and blogs suffer such vagaries.
I often feel the urge to go back and correct these past mis-takes. Yes, mis-takes, with the hyphen: almost as though they were scenes from a movie that need to be edited so that the life that inspired the movie could become better. Or at least be remembered more favorably. I often play scenes from this movie in my head --- sometimes secretly editing details. I suspect others do too.
Of course, I don't edit my older posts. Partly from laziness, partly from arbitrary principles I impose on myself. This blog was meant to record my identity, my received lessons, my introspective journeys and, naturally, my mis-takes --- like a journal. This journal is a time-capsule: when re-read, the posts in this journal should smell like a potpourri of hurt, pain, confusion and ecstasy; held together by an aging box constructed with words.
Of course, we all have (rather than make) mis-takes. Our memories change subtly so we may re-live them with lesser pain. It is only because my posts record these memories with unforgiving accuracy that I wince when I revisit them.
Isn't it better to leave memories the way they were first created? If it is futile to question the past (focus on the future instead!), shouldn't it be equally meaningless to edit older posts?
Isn't it more rewarding to see how much I have changed by remembering my slips and falls? Life might not have an obvious destination --- one could then look back to measure one's progress. The record of my life might comprise only a string of events --- some happy; some sad; some confusing; most of them dissociated from clear emotions but, nevertheless, complex.
Because I learn slowly (or perhaps I'm being consistent?) mis-takes recur. But this, should be saved for a different post.
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2 comments:
You actually write well. I've never noticed the mistakes... heh, we need more posts from you to "verify" your claims. ;)
So, I have a friend who got me a peeing monk from a Tea House in China. I googled it to see how he worked, and got your twitter account where I found your blog and am now contacting you. Do you think you could tell me how it works?
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