did you consider that regret is retrospective - done in the present to craft a story about what happened in the past

it exists ONLY in the present

---
RT @amirism_
all stories are about the past

all stories come from the present

no story is about the future
twitter.com/amirism_/status/13

i.e. "i will regret this" isn't a statement about the future, but about the present: what you're "regretting" is past decisions that led to your being here, now, faced with a situation that you don't like

Follow

regret "comes from" the present in the sense that the place you are currently at is facilitating your crafting (or buying) a story about the past that you don't like

if the problem is in the present then it's something you have control over, i.e. you can go somewhere else and the BEING somewhere else might allow you to craft a different story

this is what "moving on" is

have you ever noticed that "being unable to move on" isn't being perpetually "stuck" in the same place, but more like ALWAYS COMING BACK to the same place

it's moving in circles but still moving

the clinch is that going somewhere else requires you first *look elsewhere* which is difficult because it's crafting a different story, and writing stories is just fucking hard no matter how you look at it

writing a new story is about

"who am i if i am not this?"

"where can i be if not here?

"what else can i be doing?"

you can tell you're stuck in a loop when answering this feels impossible because you've become so familiar with your current circuit that it kills the capacity for imagination

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Mastodon

a Schelling point for those who seek one