On of my favorite stanzas in poetry is:
“The moving finger writes and having writ
Moves on nor all your piety and wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.”
(Fitzgerald’s translation from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat)
This caused an argument with Stephanie. You see she’s among other things a proofreader and an editor. In Khayyam’s day once something was written down it could not be unwritten. In an age when books were written by hand any mistake had to stay in the book or the whole thing had to be abandoned. Today is not that day. She reminded me when I quoted this that we can in fact cancel lines and “wash out” words. The sentiment she admitted is true. Once we make choices in our lives, we cannot go back and chose differently. If we mess up we live with the consequences. We can learn from that and make better choices, but we cannot change the choices we’ve already made. But the metaphor of writing and not being able to “fix.” it is one of another time. It’s still one of my favorite stanzas.
Latter Day Sinner 
26 responses to “Moving Fingers Writing”
My point was actually a bit deeper than you understood. Revisiting the past is an important stop on a heroine’s quest. It isn’t about changing the past as it is about seeing that past moment from a more mature perspective. You cannot change what happened, but you can learn to understand what happened in new ways that changes how you carry the past.
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I do not change how I carry the past in the sense I think you mean. I embellish it. I turn horrible moments into funny stories. But I try more and more to keep the cores of my stories an accurate reflection of the reality I experienced. That is the opposite I think of changing how I carry it. That is honoring the original in all its comedy and tragedy.
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Your past doesn’t haunt you the same way it haunts others.
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True, I am more of a victim of my own choices than of anyone else’s choices against me. I’ve never had to sit in the back of the bus, I’ve never experienced sexual violence, I’ve never been arrested, and I’ve usually had some say in the things I do with my life. I am a creature of consent and give it to others as much as I am able. But I admittedly find it hard to emphasize with the traumas others have faced against their will.
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You grew up with a healthy support system. When you faced trauma, you received honest help in processing it. Whenever somebody told you that you were a piece of shit, you were surrounded by people who told you otherwise. You are not haunted by the question, “maybe they were right after all,” because you never really believed them.
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That’s not quite true. I live in constant shame of “not living up to my full potential.” I was told I could be anything… Do anything. But it just wasn’t true. I live with the opposite curse of being called “a piece of shit.” I say it to myself because I got so few honest assessments of how shitty I was being at any given moment.
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I get that. But we both know people who are far more capable than they are that no amount of evidence can dissuade them. Because they believed someone else’s assessment of their worth when they were a child and don’t know how to unbelieve it even after they learn it is not true.
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I think you are missing the point I’m trying to make. There are also people like myself that are far less capable than they think they are. I have had to unlearn the bullshit of “You can be anything you believe you can be.” We are I think typing about photographic negatives of a problem.
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In which case, revisiting those memories can help you gain a new perspective if you can revisit them with the necessary maturity. How much of your frustration is in believing you could have been anything and how much of that frustration is in believing that you could have been more had you had the support necessary to persevere through your mental health challenges and how much of that frustration is that you honestly thought you could continue to succeed with minimal effort and that wasn’t at all true? You like to focus on the literal lie that you (seem to claim) you literally believed. But, in moments of clarity, you admit that you did not do the work. Figuring out why you didn’t do the work so you can change your behavior is the deep work you need to do. You have done a really good job sticking to your blog and sticking to your art. But you are still expecting unrealistic results based on the effort you have made. What you believe you can be isn’t the problem from my perspective. It’s whether you are honestly willing to do what is required to become what you believe you can be. You seem to like to tell me how the world works and what that means, but you do not work within the paradigms you claim are steadfast and true. Capitalism has rules and you haven’t followed them.
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Oh it’s definitely that I honestly thought (and sometimes still think) that I can continue to succeed with minimal effort. Part of theater is being bigger than I actually am. It feels good and sometimes I still actually believe it.
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And who is responsible for you having formed that belief? When did you come to believe it? What memory do you need to disentangle to let that lie go?
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I first really noticed it when I was dressed in drag the first time I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was imperceptible that I could be anything was a lie before then. That was Reed. I was surrounded by people who were much smarter and more motivated than I was (and am). Reed threw me into a tailspin that I sometimes don’t think I ever recovered from. At the time I imagined that I was being forged into steel. The Army was a hot furnace beating me into shape and Reed was the cold bucket of water to set the shape. But if it was I don’t recognize any positive results. Like I said the stories are hilarious in retrospect. Comedy and Tragedy.
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Those questions were rhetorical. You need to go deeper to find the answers. The real ones that can unlock your truth.
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I am swimming upward in a sea of static if my visions mean anything. Down is not the correct direction for me. We are both far too concerned with our own efforts to find answers and dismissive of answers that find (and command) us.
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I do not identify with that statement. What answers do you think I am dismissing?
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You want freedom more than anything else right now. If Heavenly Mother gave you a direct command I doubt you would obey.
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She does and I do.
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Deeper isn’t down. It is within.
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Yuck
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lol
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Self reflection in the extreme is incredibly problematic. Even more so for people who are as cerebral as we are.
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It certainly can be when you’re unwilling to face your depths. That’s why you have to go deeper within yourself. You are not the only barrier to your success, but you are the most impactful barrier to your own success that you have the most control over. That’s why you need to start with yourself. When you are ready.
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Success starts with serving others not myself. No amount of spiritual depth can make up for a day in which I have not done any good in the world.
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You have not yet reconciled that truth with what you want to accomplish. Become famous and rich in a world that rewards exploitation doesn’t do any good in the world.
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That at least is true. I barely serve and I barely influence. On a side note this conversation is a moving finger that would start to lose most of its sense if my tears started washing words out of it.
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We can be done.
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