water for chocolate

A majority of my time spent thinking revolves around this wild fascination I have with retracing the memories I have anywhere from yesterday to five years ago, and I think about what I would do if I consciously could go back in time into "past ranna" but with the knowledge that I had already lived these events and with the knowledge I have today about what occurred during the events.  I think about ways in which I could...I don't want to use the word manipulate because I feel like it has a negative connotation, but it's the most fitting...let me think of a better word...hold on...maneuver?  The way in which I could maneuver the situation to work out more preferably, perhaps, or just differently than it originally had the first time.  Why?  Well, I've come to think that I really have a big problem with this abyss we call "the future."  I don't like the uneasiness I feel about my future right now: what's to become?  I don't like living without a sense of purpose, and recently I have felt as though I'm being tossed into this black hole.

I know that all you Eckhart Tolle fans are reading this and shaking your heads in stark disappointment.  I've let you down with this confession.  I understand this.  But I really have tried!  I promise!  But sometimes I just think that maybe I don't have enough self control to remain completely in the present.  It's very difficult for me to think about each breath that take.  It's very difficult for me to do something without thinking about why I'm doing it, and what the end result will be.  I have spent time trying to remain conscious of every move that I make: when extending your arm to reach for something, think of your extended arm moving in the air as it reaches for the object, do not think about taking the object, do not think about what you will do with the object upon capturing it in your hand, feel the heaviness of each movement, like your arm is moving through water, pushing through the current.  

But it's very difficult for me to continue thinking like this over a long period of time.  So, I end up thinking about what I'm doing in my life, what I'm doing in the next three months, why I have to do something now in order to achieve something in six months.  Each time these thoughts occur, I break a sweat, my chest starts to tighten and I like to occupy myself by doing something that requires no thinking.  For example, watching, "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," or putting my headphones on and dancing crazily in my room.  It's the only way I can get my mind off of these thoughts that have really taken over and are sweeping the energy out from my body.  

Thinking about the past in the way I described to you makes me feel almost as if I would be doing something devilish.  I would know people before they knew me.  I would know details about them before they had the chance to tell me.  I would be able to live events over knowing how they turned out the first time, and changing them to see how they would be able to change.  It could be like those mystery novels we read as children: "if Bob travels into the jungle to slay the lion turn to page 46.  If Bob goes home to his family for dinner turn to page 49."

But, I'm sure I've mentioned to you more than once that the Economist magazine once wrote an editorial about a book that said that clairvoyance was actually the only impossible thing in life.  They said that time travel would be possible one day, which makes me really happy.  But clairvoyance?  Sorry charlie.  Not going to happen.  Until then I have my imagination, I suppose.  And I'm so sorry to all my Tolle fans that I find thinking about tampering with the past so much fun.  I'll try not to....starting tomorrow.