#retrospect

Too often we only identify the crucial points in our lives in retrospect. At the time we are too absorbed in the fetid detail of the moment to spot where it is leading us. But not this time. I was experiencing one of my dad’s deafening moments. If my life could be understood as a meal of many courses (and let’s be honest, much of it actually was), then I had finished the starters and I was limbering up for the main event. So far, of course, I had made a stinking mess of it. I had spilled the wine. I had dropped my cutlery on the floor and sprayed the fine white linen with sauce. I had even spat out some of my food because I didn’t like the taste of it. “But it doesn’t matter because, look, here come the waiters. They are scraping away the debris with their little horn and steel blades, pulled with studied grace from the hidden pockets of their white aprons. They are laying new tablecloths, arranging new cutlery, placing before me great domed wine glasses, newly polished to a sparkle. There are more dishes to come, more flavors to try, and this time I will not spill or spit or drop or splash. I will not push the plate away from me, the food only half eaten. I am ready for everything they are preparing to serve me. Be in no doubt; it will all be fine.” (pp.115-6) ↗

— Jay Rayner

#apron #courses #crucial-points #cutlery #deafening-moments

In retrospect I realize that the threat was about ego rather than the validity of the music. ↗

— David Baker

#ego #i #music #rather #realize

Righteousness is easy in retrospect. ↗

— Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

#retrospect #righteousness

The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect. ↗

— Robert Louis Stevenson

#appears #good #good action #inevitable #mark

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect. ↗

— Robert Louis Stevenson

#appears #good #good action #inevitable #mark

It's sometimes easier to help others rather than helping yourself. The trick is to listen to your "self" as a friend. This may be the simplest change you ever make in life, with the biggest impact. ↗

— Lorii Myers

#life-lessons #retrospect #change

I tell you this because books for young readers are so often written about that very moment: the moment of the fork. The moment the old man cannot return to. ↗

— Virginia Euwer Wolff

#change #retrospect #young-adult #change

I feel like I am either on the cusp of something great, or standing on the edge of my abyss, discovering something brand new, or uncovering somebody elses lost imagination. ↗

— Carroll Bryant

#life-philosophy #life_universe_everything #philisophical #philisophical-life #philosphy

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#regret #retrospect #inspirational

What was I supposed to do then I wondered. Was there even a supposed-to for this kind of situation? A situation when when I looked at my receding past everything seemed retrospectively marked by an extreme order and predictability yet all moments since seemed to obey, and promised to continue obeying, their own set of stochastic, undisclosed, and undiscoverable laws. Where I was fully aware of the pitfalls and folly of a finely-tuned narcissism but still the known universe seemed to bend and bend inexorably inward and towards me where it awaited my next move, supremely ready to react accordingly. And how I knew that decisions I would soon make or defer would have near-Sophoclean import and yet nonetheless it all seemed oddly irrelevant. ↗

— Sergio De La Pava

#future #life #past #retrospective #uncertainly