You don’t have to be the person you were yesterday.
Memory doesn’t bind you.
You can choose to be different—to find a new story.
Even the people who know you inside out
will find a path to another version of you.
Sure—memory is a burden, with all its lingering pain.
But you can forget all the things you did.
You can make a new history that starts now.
Just because there are records of the past—traces of who you used to be—
that doesn’t make the old version of you any more real or relevant
than your unknown future self—
the one that begins with a conscious choice.
So find the courage to cut ties with the parts of you that don’t make sense anymore,
because the worst thing you can do is force continuity onto a life
that, by nature, always changes.
Garbage Notes:
I wrote this at a time when I so badly wanted to be someone different. I was at a nexus point between shedding my identity as an academic scholar in the field of psychology and wanting to desperately be understood and accepted as a creative writer.
If there’s any wisdom here, I think it comes from knowing in your heart when it’s time to move on.
It’s about walking right into uncertainty and darkness. Embracing the unfamiliar despite feeling afraid. Even if there’s criticism and doubt.
I knew I was ready to check out of my previous life and do something else. But the harder part was figuring out how exactly to reinvent myself.
I remember one of the most difficult things was grappling with the history I was leaving behind. The memories. All the work I had done. All the people I had collaborated with.
See, we all leave behind traces of our previous selves. All you have to do is run an internet search of someone’s name and you can find almost anything about their life and career path. Especially if you’ve had some measure of success in something. People will find it. And they’ll wonder … why?
Things don’t always look neat and tidy on paper—if your trajectory is sort of jagged or chaotic, people start to get confused. But the reality is, not every path is a clear-cut linear thing.
So when it comes down to it, this poem is about the difficulty of starting over—of stopping and leaving elements of your previous self behind.
I left a lot on the table when I left university life, I know that. I had to accept that. But I’m at a new table now. And maybe the table isn’t as shiny, and it’s not at the top of an ivory tower. In fact it’s more like a crappy little make-shift desk at the bottom of the slush pile … but that’s a commentary for another day.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, you never know what your future self is going to look like. It’s actually liberating. Because it means there’s something new and different out there for anyone who wants it.
Franco Amati 2023
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
George Bernard Shaw
The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small.
Henry Kissinger
I think both of the above quotes are unfair, but contain kernels of truth.
A bigger question is why--with so much accumulated brain power--so little truly brilliant and creative work originates in academia?
Some possibilities: academics are terrified of venturing beyond the accepted parameters of their field, lest they be labeled cranks or heretics. The hoops one must jump through to gain academic credentials filters out most original thinkers. Or, many creative people who do enter academia feel stifled by all the bullshit and leave.
Congratulations Franco for having the courage to follow you heart and take a very scary leap!
Most folks will fry their souls because they are afraid to jump out of a frying pan. Or, are too attached to outward status to follow their inner promptings.
(I beg forgiveness for quoting war-criminal Kissinger!)
Inspiration for us all! It's key to cut ties with your past self and become a new version of you- not to fight evolution. Change in life sets a fire to the past. That fire is not always bad and destructive- it can be benign.