Chance

“When I was younger, I had wanted to be at the very center of all the action in New York, but I slowly came to realize that there is no one center. The center is everywhere - wherever people are living out their lives. It's a city with a million centers.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

“It is the one who accepts commitment who is strong. The true commitment is the artistic one. This is why artists are so often attacked. They are attacked for their morals, for their ideas – even for their work. Yet their essence – their commitment – is the secret which is unassailable. The true artist knows that creativity is its own reward. Ordinary people fear commitment, you see. Ordinary people fear creativity. They know that if they allow that seething cauldron of yellow liquid to boil over within themselves, then their whole lives will be changed. People fear change. People do not wish to be creative and artistic in any real sense. They wish to decorate, perhaps, and to make things around themselves pleasant – but this has little to do with creativity. … All spiritual paths should be creative. Creativity is involved with sacrifice. That stew of yellow liquid which boils in everyone is a sacrificial broth …”
― Mark Hedsel

“We take it for granted that life moves forward. You build memories; you build momentum.You move as a rower moves: facing backwards.

You can see where you've been, but not where you’re going. And your boat is steered by a younger version of you.

It's hard not to wonder what life would be like facing the other way. Avenoir.

You'd see your memories approaching for years, and watch as they slowly become real.

You’d know which friendships will last, which days are important, and prepare for upcoming mistakes. You'd go to school, and learn to forget.

One by one you'd patch things up with old friends, enjoying one last conversation before you
meet and go your separate ways.

And then your life would expand into epic drama. The colors would get sharper, the world would feel bigger.

You'd become nothing other than yourself, reveling in your own weirdness.

You'd fall out of old habits until you could picture yourself becoming almost anything.

Your family would drift slowly together, finding each other again.

You wouldn't have to wonder how much time you had left with people, or how their lives would turn out.

You'd know from the start which week was the happiest you’ll ever be, so you could relive it again and again.

You'd remember what home feels like,
and decide to move there for good.

You'd grow smaller as the years pass, as if trying to give away everything you had before leaving.

You'd try everything one last time, until it all felt new again.

And then the world would finally earn your trust, until you’d think nothing of jumping freely into things, into the arms of other people.

You'd start to notice that each summer feels longer than the last.

Until you reach the long coasting retirement of childhood.

You'd become generous, and give everything back.

Pretty soon you’d run out of things to give, things to say, things to see.

By then you'll have found someone perfect; and she'll become your world.

And you will have left this world just as you found it.

Nothing left to remember, nothing left to regret, with your whole life laid out in front of you, and your whole life left behind.”
― The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

“But this is a city that gets born anew in the fresh eyes of every young person who arrives here for the first time. So that city, that place—newly created for my eyes only—will never exist again. It is preserved forever in my memory like an orchid trapped in a paperweight. That city will always be my perfect New York.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls