Remembering Forgetting

I

From “Little Gidding“

Part V, stanza II

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-hearted, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea

Quick now, here, now, always —

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

and the fire and the rose are one.

–T. S. Eliot

from Four Quartets

II

Life is a maze with doors and they all open from the side your on:

keep on pushing hard, boy, try as you may,

you’re gonna wind up where you started from.

III

“I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don’t notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.”

David Byrne

From the movie “True Stories”