RESIGNATION

In Veneration of Resignation

There is a point in life when the past hardens into permanence. The days lived, the loves lost, the victories and humiliations. These cannot be relived, reconstructed, or altered. They are sealed, like fossils pressed into stone. No wish for the future, no fever of regret, can reanimate them. And yet, we human beings are notorious for circling those fossils, running our fingers over them, and lamenting what once was.

The truth is more straightforward, harsher, and, if accepted, more liberating: they are gone.

The Folly of Re-creation

Much of human suffering springs not from what happened, but from the futile wish that it might happen again, or differently. To relive an hour of youth, correct a mistake, and restore what was lost is a fantasy. It breeds paralysis. To live in perpetual remembrance is to live in exile from the present. The cost is high, for it drains the only time we possess.

The First Resignation

So we resign. We accept that what is past is past. We step back into the current of life and allow it to sweep us onward. This is the first resignation, difficult, reluctant, and often painful.

The Second Resignation

But there is a subtler, deeper demand. Even after we resign, we are tempted to rehearse that resignation endlessly: I must get over this. I must get over that. Yet such repetition only ties us back to the very memories we meant to release. We need a second resignation, an act of “getting over getting over it.”

It is not enough to let go; we must let go of letting go. Only then does memory lose its grip.

Living Beyond the Echo

In its honest measure, life is not about constantly reconstructing what has gone before. It is about standing in the moment's immediacy, without longing for its return once it passes. Each instant contains enough truth and beauty to demand our full attention. When we relinquish the urge to relive or re-lament, we finally discover what remains: a present unburdened by the ruins of yesterday.

To venerate resignation is not to glorify defeat. It is to recognize the dignity of acceptance and honor the wisdom of release. The past cannot be resurrected, but the present, properly seen, is resurrection enough.

William James Spriggs