Isn't it funny, the belief that un-saying something is possible? Say a thing isn't, and it isn't? I'm sorry, call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the permanence of the past. We may not know what it is, but it doesn't go away, it doesn't really change and become something else entirely. If you can fool yourself, then good for you. I can sometimes, but not often. If it matters enough to affect the present, then it matters enough to not be mis-remembered.

I bring up this subject because people delete blog entries. One friend deleted her most recent post. Another (a few weeks ago) deleted all her blog entries back to september. Why did you write it in the first place? Either you no longer want to believe it happened, or you no longer want people to read it. If the first, then you're walking in the dark down the wrong path, and if the second, you shouldn't have written it in the first place, or you should have used a paper journal at home.

I'm reminded of two things. In Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury, Quentin so wanted his sister to be different, virtuous and his, that he told lies about the past, tried to believe lies about the past. He told his father that they had been together, and his father brushed aside the lie, saying that even if they had, it wouldn't have changed anything. Quentin ended up tying stones to his feet and jumping off a bridge. It was just impossible to believe away the discrepancies, especially her illegitimate daughter whom she abandoned to the family before running away. Then, Orwell's famous protagonist has the government job of altering past news documents, so that everyone will get used to a lack of permanence in their lives. Something happened in the past, but the past is only in relation to the present, rather than the present being in relation to the past. So all the government had to do was create a present, corroborated by an invented past, to put the people on a particular path into the future. It was meant to be horrifying.

On the radio today, I heard that recruiting for the military was a record high in December. Everyone wants to be a part of the national guard. Plus, they're now exporting the national guard, i.e. making them an international guard (though not in those words). grrr. The thought that went through my head was, "How soon till we are Rome?" Better Rome than 1984, but barely.