live in the discovery

a seaside village in the southern coast of italy, where i went last week

maybe here is another secret to life: to live fully in the discovery of things; to live inside the very act of discovery. to embrace discovery as a means of knowing — the self, a place, an object, another person. to think of discovery as an ongoing way of being, rather than simply something which only happens once, only at the very beginning of things, before the novelty fades and excitement wears off.

to live in the act of discovery, then, is to make everything new again. new, and always new. to not assume any knowledge, inherited from romance books, or personal history, or cultural assumptions. to let go of all stories, facts, templates of how things are, or should be. to live in discovery assumes that each experience, each place, each person — is a foreign land. no matter how much time passes, no matter how close or intimate. each day, each moment is new. time itself can make everything new again. to live in discovery is that conscious shifting into a mindset which resists familiarity — which can be both comfort and tyranny.

do you know how? do I know how? I think the instructions involve forgetting. forget everything you know. then, be here and now. mystics have said this for ages, but it doesn’t make it any easier. so we can only start with today. today I forget. today I remember. today I make familiar. today I forget everything I know. and then, I discover and rediscover.