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Damn Hindsight! Why are you so unforgiving?

May 24, 2007

Who I want to meet…? « Syd’s Rants on Life

Somewhat of a random trackback referring to something equally random on the original post where the author says, he wants to ”meet [himself] in about 5 years time, look back at this and say, u know what, ur an idiot for writing random crap but jeez, u were honest.” I know people talk about it all the time, but I find it so amazing, hilarious but at the same time unnerving that I’ve said and done things in the past which seemed to me, at the time, the right things to say and do, but now I look back and cringe at my behavior. You know that feeling, “What was I thinking?” People always say hindsight is twenty-twenty but sometimes I wish we could go on without having such hindsight realisations because then I wouldn’t have to cringe at myself or feel bad – but that’s silly because we’d never learn or grow.

I have some great friends, and sometimes I wonder why they remain my friends - I have treated them badly because I was being childish, and only realised it after a while and tried to change my behaviour. I have responded rashly in situations and although I cringe when I remember such events, in reality, it seems like it had never happened, but I can’t imagine acting in the same way again.

Have you felt, after a few months, after a year, after five years - after however long - that you have behaved really badly in a situation? And more importantly, have you felt like apologising and explaining “I didn’t realise because I was stupid or because that was just how I was then – but I was wrong”? I sort of feel like that right now, but then I feel like the person I would apologise to might not have even gone through the thinking-process that I am going through now regarding the event, and furthermore, it’s so long after the event, that they’d be like “what the hell are you talking about?”

Damn hindsight.

What do you think?

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comments

hindsight seems to be somethin thats always on my mind these days for obvious reasons of which you are well aware ;)
im in a state of trans just hoping that the laws of physics would evolve and ill go back in time and change it all…but i guess its just me holding on to the fledging memories of what i did and what i SHOULD have done….im in no position to argue for a positive outcome, but i do have hope and hope is something im not gonna let go off..
i guess for me its always been about the steps ive taken goin forwrd and not retracing the ones that i landed into a puddle with..do i lok back..yes…do i wish i could go back…yes… but thats the extent of it…its hard to ignore the past but the crude realization that ‘i cant do anything about it now’ forces me to carry on…
and hoping for a better future…thats enough to make me hear the birds chirping and feel the warmth of the sun ;p
dunno where im getting at..might be just a stupid comment…im gonna post it anyhow and now regret doin it in hindsight ;p

kash

May 24, 2007

how can i link hindsight and de ja vu. more and more i experience the latter phenomenon and i wonder if i can relate this back to hindsight, and potentially…foresight!! Is it possible to interact in this world, in the single best way…or simply a way that works (or may not work for that matter)

Marcus

May 24, 2007

Hindsight is an interesting thing…not sure what you mean about it links to de ja vu. But in terms of foresight its interesting to look at it in the perspective of hindsight, i.e. will what i’m doing now be something i look back at and regret/pride. Perhaps in a less melodramatic sense, i think i mean, assessing the consequences of what you’re doing now rather than being rudely faced with them afterwards.

Pretty random, not really thought out – Marcus, it’d be interesting to hear more about de ja vu insights.

James

May 24, 2007

Not a stupid comment at all Kash. What you say is very true, and hindsight just will make one grow and hopefully it will stop one from making the same mistakes again. I just find it so baffling that I can look back now and see things in my own actions, and in other people’s actions that I just could not see at that time. What makes me even more perplexed is I cannot understand why I see now what I couldn’t see 18 months ago. I mean, I know I’ve changed, but I don’t understand how. Is it just time that slowly processess all this crap inside of one’s head until it finally produces a realisation of the bad behaviour of the past?

For some strange reason Marcus, I feel like I know what you’re talking about with regards to de ja vu. Do you mean that you sometimes get a feeling like you’ve had before when you know you’re going to look back at it later and regret it? I mean I often get that, and often I find myself shaking my head later saying, “what was I thinking!?” but then some of the bigger moments where it takes longer for hindsight to kick in usually do not have these “de ja vu” moments.

I think I always do what James was suggesting – I evaluate the consequences of something I’m considering doing, however unfortunately, the things that I end up regretting are things that I don’t see coming at all or things that I didn’t realise at all! I suppose as we get older, we’ll experience more things, and hindsight will kick us in the backside again and again, and we’ll become more prepared and see more consequences when we evaluate our plans, and hopefully we’ll cringe less when we look back at the year gone.

Arnie

May 26, 2007

I wonder if anyone looks back a year and thinks, “Wow I really knew what I was doing!”

Arnie

May 26, 2007

Yes we all cringe when we look back at some of our past actions, but it’s also true that without hindsight we’d never grow. Although…i can think of some people, even with the power of hindsight, who dont’ grow anyway…go figure.
I think that one important part of hindsight is taking responsability for our choices and actions in life which have led us to where we are now. All too often, it’s easy to blame our parents, friends, enemies, society, our circumstances for our reactions and situations at the time of the crisis.
But our ability to look back and think “i can’t believe i did that” moves us to realise that it was indeed our own choices, and hold ourselves accountable for what we did and where we are now.

Pei

May 29, 2007

I agree with you Pei. Blaming people gets us off the hook in our own minds, and makes us look less bad in the eyes of other people assuming they believe us. When I find myself blaming another person, the person I blame definitely could have behaved differently. However, i can’t think of a solution where I am totally thrilled with my behaviour which i thought was fine at that time. Of course the behaviour was fine – in our minds that’s where we were at. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement, and understanding that we are accountable is a huge factor that will allow us to grow.

Arnie

May 29, 2007

I understand what Marcus means about de ja vu linking with foresight now. Thanks arnie for explaining.

I think awareness of consequences in the future is very hard to gauge. How does one balance this de ja vu foresight with an openess for what the future will bring?

Not sure if that makes sense….I guess i mean when do you let this feeling of foresight de ja vu guide you in acting when you truly do not know what it is you are doing?

James

May 30, 2007

It’s really tough. That’s why experience is so valued and in the end, we’re often wrong in many circumstances, so the openess for the future will is something natural we possess? I suppose it’s a matter of how one approaches something given their experience, hoping for a different outcome, but no one can be sure of what that outcome will exactly be.

Arnie

May 30, 2007

1 notes

  1. Blog posts for Jenny and Transient Spaces « Sathfilms reblogged this and added:

    [...] And a few others posts that reveal the active community: http://sathfilms.com/2007/05/24/damn-hindsight-why-are-you-so-unforgiving [...]

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