This line, and altogether, the poem by Elizabeth Bishop itself happens to be my favorite, because it gives an excellent opinion about human nature, which tends to move beyond the unfathomable clutches of mortal pain in due time, rather than being stuck in past and mourn the loss of several things (both major and completely insignificant in the eyes of the Common). It suffices to say that no matter how tormented, how broken apart a person feels after going through some sort of horrible experience; he/she will in a certain interval forget all likelihood associated with himself/herself and the matter as presented earlier.
Not only will the person choose to bear no recollection of the miserable event, but shall also drown it into the dark recesses of his/her mind, and allow it to re-surface only as an unwanted nightmare or a faint thought of past horrors and sins afterward.
In most cases, however, the said affected person; perhaps due to the indefinite retaining ability of human memory, or because of the matter losing significance in time and hence becoming negligible to present itself as a painful memory; stops contemplating continuously about the matter in entirety and goes on with his/her life as nothing bad did ever take place.
Extraordinary, most extraordinary indeed! The art of losing, it really isn't hard to master, is it? People lose friends, they lose those dearest to them, they lose their pride, their fame and in far critical times, their well-earned fortune as well! And yet, with time all that is either cured or it continues to dawn upon the victims like some long drawn curse that knows no end whatsoever.
Understandably, people are always losing something or someone, and the whole mechanism present in the oft echoed social advice to 'forgive and forget' continues to enforce its message on humanity as a whole. Let's say (hypothetically speaking, of course) that I had a huge fight with a particularly good friend of mine, and so everlasting was the damage that presented afterwards to our relationship, that it made reconciliation as nothing more than an unfriendly hallucination. Interestingly, however, give me two-three days at least; or better yet, give me a few months or for good measure, a few years and you'll see me fit as a fiddle again, not disconcerted by the severing of ties with that earlier cherished friend of mine. Forgive and forget? Precisely that, most definitely so!
See, this is how reality works. It makes you forgive and forget past grievances. It tells you, no, it forces you to move on with your life as if nothing bad had happened and that only good is to follow afterwards (as absurd as that can sound to an unfortunate man). The 'moving on' thing isn't really as much of a dilemma as it presents itself right afterward undergoing the damaging consequences of the said critical situation, because the individual understands that without any path open, he/she has really no choice, but to discard the matter at present and move on to the things that he can exercise control onto easily.
It's funny how well-equipped the average individual is to deal with such kinds of social crises when they unceremoniously present themselves. For example, let's assume for my own sheer amusement that the two victims of a critical social event happen to be a young couple. Now, the event can be that the boyfriend was caught cheating on his girlfriend ('hey, it was unintentional!' the boyfriend will rightfully protest here) or whatever your minds, dear reader, can concoct up here; and you'll see the formation of a familiar pattern that begs the two individuals to play their respective parts accordingly. The boyfriend, either in fear of being reprimanded by the society for his immoral actions or due to purely troubling psychological reasons may decide to win back his damsel by pouring down several pleas-these either asking the dearly beloved to forget his sin and forgive him, and once more re-conciliate with him, or to give him a chance to justify the unexplainable course of action he undertook. The response by his aggrieved girlfriend could vary, however, depending on the type of individual she is.
She could ignore the pleas and cut off all means of contact with her guilty boyfriend, or she could make sure that the people around her (these being overly protective female friends or overly involved male friends, who will see the break-up as an opportunity in itself) keep the 'wild hog' away from her through all means possible. And soon enough, the ex-boyfriend would stop trying to get back together with her, and move on like the sane and rational individual that he is.
Indeed, this is the case with average individuals. But, in the event that the said individuals are deranged psychopaths or genuinely mentally ill, graver consequences that might just become an ending like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet would follow and you'd probably end up hearing about a romantic tragedy in the daily newspaper that involves suicide through deliberate strangulation or the taking of poison after dressing up oneself beautifully, as if to send some sort of deathly disturbing message to the transgressor in question.
Sad. Unfortunate. Painful. Disturbing. All the negative adjectives one could find in a dictionary won't be enough to express how shocking the whole series of events would then become for the concerned parties in such a dismal situation as grossly conjured up here.
I'll end for now by correcting myself; the art of losing is hard to master at times, and even though on an average basis, severing ties with people and things may seem as trifling, it's not. All those mental disorders out there; depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, etc, they all have something in common according to most cognitive and behavioral psychologists: they all commence due to a negative experience or event, either in the victim's childhood or period of early adolescence.
So, the next time you think of breaking ties with a particular person, beware that you might just become a cause for a mental disorder in that person afterward!
Not only will the person choose to bear no recollection of the miserable event, but shall also drown it into the dark recesses of his/her mind, and allow it to re-surface only as an unwanted nightmare or a faint thought of past horrors and sins afterward.
In most cases, however, the said affected person; perhaps due to the indefinite retaining ability of human memory, or because of the matter losing significance in time and hence becoming negligible to present itself as a painful memory; stops contemplating continuously about the matter in entirety and goes on with his/her life as nothing bad did ever take place.
Extraordinary, most extraordinary indeed! The art of losing, it really isn't hard to master, is it? People lose friends, they lose those dearest to them, they lose their pride, their fame and in far critical times, their well-earned fortune as well! And yet, with time all that is either cured or it continues to dawn upon the victims like some long drawn curse that knows no end whatsoever.
Understandably, people are always losing something or someone, and the whole mechanism present in the oft echoed social advice to 'forgive and forget' continues to enforce its message on humanity as a whole. Let's say (hypothetically speaking, of course) that I had a huge fight with a particularly good friend of mine, and so everlasting was the damage that presented afterwards to our relationship, that it made reconciliation as nothing more than an unfriendly hallucination. Interestingly, however, give me two-three days at least; or better yet, give me a few months or for good measure, a few years and you'll see me fit as a fiddle again, not disconcerted by the severing of ties with that earlier cherished friend of mine. Forgive and forget? Precisely that, most definitely so!
See, this is how reality works. It makes you forgive and forget past grievances. It tells you, no, it forces you to move on with your life as if nothing bad had happened and that only good is to follow afterwards (as absurd as that can sound to an unfortunate man). The 'moving on' thing isn't really as much of a dilemma as it presents itself right afterward undergoing the damaging consequences of the said critical situation, because the individual understands that without any path open, he/she has really no choice, but to discard the matter at present and move on to the things that he can exercise control onto easily.
It's funny how well-equipped the average individual is to deal with such kinds of social crises when they unceremoniously present themselves. For example, let's assume for my own sheer amusement that the two victims of a critical social event happen to be a young couple. Now, the event can be that the boyfriend was caught cheating on his girlfriend ('hey, it was unintentional!' the boyfriend will rightfully protest here) or whatever your minds, dear reader, can concoct up here; and you'll see the formation of a familiar pattern that begs the two individuals to play their respective parts accordingly. The boyfriend, either in fear of being reprimanded by the society for his immoral actions or due to purely troubling psychological reasons may decide to win back his damsel by pouring down several pleas-these either asking the dearly beloved to forget his sin and forgive him, and once more re-conciliate with him, or to give him a chance to justify the unexplainable course of action he undertook. The response by his aggrieved girlfriend could vary, however, depending on the type of individual she is.
She could ignore the pleas and cut off all means of contact with her guilty boyfriend, or she could make sure that the people around her (these being overly protective female friends or overly involved male friends, who will see the break-up as an opportunity in itself) keep the 'wild hog' away from her through all means possible. And soon enough, the ex-boyfriend would stop trying to get back together with her, and move on like the sane and rational individual that he is.
Indeed, this is the case with average individuals. But, in the event that the said individuals are deranged psychopaths or genuinely mentally ill, graver consequences that might just become an ending like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet would follow and you'd probably end up hearing about a romantic tragedy in the daily newspaper that involves suicide through deliberate strangulation or the taking of poison after dressing up oneself beautifully, as if to send some sort of deathly disturbing message to the transgressor in question.
Sad. Unfortunate. Painful. Disturbing. All the negative adjectives one could find in a dictionary won't be enough to express how shocking the whole series of events would then become for the concerned parties in such a dismal situation as grossly conjured up here.
I'll end for now by correcting myself; the art of losing is hard to master at times, and even though on an average basis, severing ties with people and things may seem as trifling, it's not. All those mental disorders out there; depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, etc, they all have something in common according to most cognitive and behavioral psychologists: they all commence due to a negative experience or event, either in the victim's childhood or period of early adolescence.
So, the next time you think of breaking ties with a particular person, beware that you might just become a cause for a mental disorder in that person afterward!
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