Hindsight
“...He
thought of himself, thought of things that had seemed so important,
so full of meaning when he was twenty, or forty...Red herrings and
misdirection, all the characters and observations that seemed so
central, so significant while the story was unfolding. But then at
the end you realized that the crucial thing was really something
else. Something buried in a conversation, a description—you
realized that all along it had been a different answer, another
person glimpsed but passed over, who was the key to everything...And
if you went back...they were there, the clues you missed while you
were reading, caught up in the need to move forward. All quietly
there.”
Mary Swan
Good writers can tell a
story that leads into a densely wooded forest with many paths. Any
chosen path will lead to a conclusion that is different from all the
others. They know how to drop into the story-line a casual
conversations, or a quick glimpse of something that seems irrelevant
at the time, but later turns out to be crucial. When you are reading
a good book, do you find yourself leafing back to certain scenes, or
making margin notes of things to remember? Sometimes, when the tension
gets too high, I skip ahead to make sure my favorite characters
survive, knowing that losing them would feel tragic to me. At the
end, all the threads either come together, or turn inside-out, so
that what seemed to be the most likely outcome was not at all. Good
stories are deliciously unpredictable.
Hindsight is one of the
great mysteries of life. Salmon can swim all their lives in the vast
ocean, and still remember exactly which river they hatched in and how
to get back there. So why is it that we humans, with our big brains,
can live a long life and miss all the clues? Why is it that we latch
on to all the wrong things, the unimportant things, and give them far
more meaning than they deserve?
Remember when you were
ten years old and the teacher scolded you for being sloppy in your
homework, or not studying for a test. At the time, the embarrassment
was deeply wounding. You thought you would die from shame. But
looking back, what real impact did that incident have on your life?
Was it a turning point? Suppose you had a love relationship that went
down the drain—you discovered that the object of your affection was
unfaithful or deceitful. Life turned upside down for a while. You
grieved, maybe even fell into depression. You thought you would never
be whole again. But here you are, and in hindsight you feel eternally
grateful that the person came and went from your life. When you look
back, all the clues to that deceit were there in plain sight, but did
not register with you or you chose not to see them. Only in hindsight
is the pattern clear. Many paths, many outcomes.
We can live looking in
the rear-view mirror, or we can learn from our mistakes and misdirection, and move on. Allowing life to flow, not getting stuck
on the rocks and riffs of past illusions and bad choices, makes for a
happier present. Our story is just as complex as any plot in any book
ever written. The very best we can do is keep our eyes open, and try
not to miss any of it. The clues are all there if we have eyes to see
them. Your story is still unfolding...so which path will you take?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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