Two views with slightly different valences…
Walter Benjamin:
The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
Translation: © 2005 Dennis Redmond; https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm
Thich Nhat Hanh:
If we know that the past also lies in the present, we understand that we are able to change the past by transforming the present. The ghosts of the past, which follow us into the present, also belong to the present moment. To observe them deeply, recognize their nature, and transform them, is to transform the past.
Our Appointment with Life in Everyday Mind edited by Jean Smith.
And so for day 2796
08.08.2014