energy and treachery

Who was it, who said Living goes forward, understanding goes backward?

(Yes, it's a cliché. Yes, I think there is truth in clichés. And yes, I realize the last phrase is another cliché. Perhaps it boils down to this: everything has already been said in some way or another, but I am figuring it out anyway, I am twisting and turning those good old truths to figure out my version of them, because there is no other way to know what they mean even if they have been spoken a thousand times).

My version of the phrase, then, would be: so much is going on now, while my reflective moods seem to pertain events that took place some year ago, - when a lot was going on, too, and things were also moving fast, and when I was incapable of reflecting on them immediately.

I am such a reflector, and then sometimes I am such a live-r, a dasher, a bouncy impulsive do-er. Once, I asked a friend how he was doing and he said it was going alright, he was rolling with the punches. Going with what happens, moving forward, letting things come to you instead of pursueing something. Life moves fast and I love it when it does, but then on many levels I don't really get it, yet. I am not sure how I am moving and where, although I am pretty sure something is happening.

Energies, are the concept I tend to use to get some grip, at least. The energy level I experience with a person or a a group of people may be high or low, a person may have positive or negative energy. My energy may be blocked or flowing. My energy may be focussed on the place where I am, which makes me feel Zen, like it was always intended for me be right here, right this moment. Or it may be lost in space, focussed on another place, another time.

When that happens, it feels like treachery. A friend may call from Geneva and say 'Hannah, where are you, we are sitting by the lake, these people are here, it's Easter and we always do an Easter picknick', and my heart might break a little. I might have accepted a job and find myself sitting behind a desk whereas I had promised myself I would be in Berlin now, writing my first manuscript, for no other reasons than my very own.

When that happens, it may be hard to turn on the reflective mode. Because how did I get here? How did I lead myself astray? Which factors triggered this deception?

Perhaps the questions are too hard to answer, now, and thus, instead, I reach for the past, where there is belated figuring-out to do. Figuring-out that may eventually catch up to a time closer to the present, may eventually tell me how I got here (although it may not convey - whether I want to be here).

I know who it was that said perhaps she still has something to learn before she will gets what she wants. It was a wise young woman and a true friend, one of the people that make sure I don't bounce astray too far, one of the guides that pull & push me closer to the silver lining.