November 23rd, 2009
Best Mistake
We get most things wrong, and when we try to rationalize them, at best we’re guessing. What mistake of yours made you the happiest?
Transcriptorial: Maybe I shouldn't have promised / to never love another. / Then again, it's the best mistake.
I think this is my favourite entry of yours thus far. It’s beautiful. Interesting choice of colours, especially the red. The eyes look hopeful, yet hesitant. There is something Cicero said in his De Divinatione, “non enim omnis error stultitia est dicenda.” It means “we must not say that every mistake is a foolish one.”
And you’re right; it is the best mistake…
My mom says that I’m her best mistake.
I just love coming in here. It’s one of my “safe places.” And I never know what I’ll find.
I don’t know of a “happy mistake” that I’ve made but few disastrous ones either.
I am glad that I separated myself from a mistake made for me by my parents, who raised me in a cult. I’m very, very happy I woke up from that particular impossible dream.
Interesting thought exercise.
My best mistake would have to be the events that led to the end of my most important relationship. I still love him, but I love my new life more than I ever loved the one I had that had a space for him. And if you don’t love your life, it’ll come down on the head of the one you love. I’m glad that we’re both happy, pursuing our individual adventures, not sitting together in a silent apartment resenting each other for our lost opportunities.
I hold all my mistakes dearly, they’ve brought me to where I am today.
I think I once wrote a comic about how it would be silly to try and rewind time to undo a mistake, because you would rewind time back to a point when you didn’t know any better, and you’d end up making the mistake anyway. In the worst-case scenario, you’d also go on to invent the time-rewinder again, and you’d be stuck in an infinite temporal loop and never know it.
I wonder, when people write about the paradoxes of going back in time and trying to change things, whether they are dealing with the issues of regret and acceptance, coaching their treatment of the issue in notions of literal inevitability and personal narrative.
Anyway, if you have time to find the comic and reply with the link, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it!
I agree that time travel stories are almost always fables dealing with our struggle to accept the past. The moral is always that such acceptance is necessary… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time travel story where someone successfully changed the past and caused a happy ending. (Well, I’ve seen it a few times, but the successful time traveler is always undoing a change some other time traveler already made to the past.)
The comic I wrote was part of this story arc:
http://erikahammerschmidt.johnanderikaspeak.com/an/index.php?itemid=121
http://erikahammerschmidt.johnanderikaspeak.com/an/index.php?itemid=122
http://erikahammerschmidt.johnanderikaspeak.com/an/index.php?itemid=123
My best mistake was falling in love with my partner, the best thing i could ever ask for, god i never even knew it was possible but in someone many ways it has been a mistake due to people’s responses and all but a few friends supporting us as a couple, we still got some people to face down but i wouldn’t change meeting Leigh for anything in the entire world…
think i managed to hold back most of the mush on that lol
My best mistake was calling my best friend pretty. Really I meant it, but not outloud for everyone to read and not to her specifically. A short time later I admitted my feelings to her after she cornered me.
I think my second best mistake was calling a slovak girl “belle” I thought it was her name but it means pretty [in italian i think] ahaha
I wonder.. is that what it takes? Do I have to have a gun to my head in order to suceed [perhaps even literally]?
No.. I don’t think I need it to suceed but I do believe people can do amazing things when pushed. But I’m not under pressure.
Pressure didn’t make me call her pretty.
That was a mistake but I did it on purpose.
My best mistake was calling my best friend pretty. Really I meant it, but not outloud for everyone to read and not to her specifically. A short time later I admitted my feelings to her after she cornered me.
I think my second best mistake was calling a slovak girl “belle” I thought it was her name but it means pretty [in italian i think] ahaha
But is it a mistake if we dont regret it or it worked out for the best…..
I don’t think you can call it a mistake…just a change of direction. Maybe it can be called a mistake from the point of departure (where you “meant” to go) but not when you get where it takes you.