Regression

Are we regressing to the mean or are we flying off on some new variance from the norm to a place that may be wonderful - or terrifying?

Someone should ask the driver.

Someone is driving this metaphoric bus, right?

No?

I get that those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but I think there's a pretty big difference between reflection and regret. Time spent on regret is an opportunity cost; you'd be better off spending that time and energy working on a time machine so you could actually do something about whatever it is you wish you'd said or done. (Just don't leave your iPhone behind or accidentally kill your father. You can thank me some time in the future.) Reflection can be helpful if you convert any insights from past events into future actions. Then again, you're still you, aren't you? The same childhood traumas and tragedies that drove you to do whatever it is you've been regretting are still driving your bus today. You're probably going to take that left hand turn in Albuquerque again. And again. And… well, you get the point.

I like to think I focus on where I'm at right now and where I want to go (and perhaps there's some ego involved in my thinking of that direction as "forward"). This is probably the result of my own childhood traumas and tragedies, of course. I was an Army brat. We had moved three times before my earliest memories of childhood. I've tended to think that this was when I first became self-aware, a few months before my third birthday. From that point until I was fourteen we moved seven more times. I learned how to make friends but I never had to learn how to keep a friend. I was constantly starting over. I guess I still am.

Along the way, I've been witness to many events; some filled me with hope for the future, others left me in despair. Such is any life, I suppose. 

I saw men land on the Moon. I saw a President resign and thought, everything is going to be different and different for the better! (I was wrong.) I saw the Berlin Wall come down. I married the love of my life and saw my children born. I rode the big wave of the Information Age like Laird Hamilton. (Okay, like someone who finished second but can also claim that I surfed with Laird Hamilton.0 I saw the Red Sox end the Curse of the Bambino. I saw a black man elected President. 

I was sent home from school in third grade because the President had been shot and killed. A day or two later I watched his accused assassin shot dead on live TV. I'm still not convinced Oswald acted alone. (If you can build a time machine out spare parts from broken gas grills, snow blowers, and string trimmers I promise you I will find out.) I saw kids in t-shirts and bellbottoms beaten by cops with nightsticks in the streets of Chicago. Kent State. I feared the draft and the seemingly never ending war in Southeast Asia but that war did end - or change venues - and the draft ended before I could die in combat. I saw more assassinations. Disco. Rodney King. Riots in the streets. I saw September 11th. I saw an orange man elected President. 

I saw January 6th.

You saw it too, didn't you?

Anyone? 

Maybe this bus is just driving in circles. 

I guess I can stop working on that time machine. Next stop: 1850.