Hindsight

Jan 30, 2007 21:22

Hindsight is overrated. Seriously. Given most members of my family can't move without stumbling against a prophecy, I'd argue foresight does far more harm. When has a prophecy ever helped anyone - other than into making spectacularly foolish decisions and/or finding new ways to compete against each other, I mean?

I'd love to say that I never play the if only game, but unfortunately, most of the people whose opinion actually means something to me would know I'm lying. No, I'm not immune. Of course I go through that "If I had known then..." or "if I had done that..." cycle which makes us all look like hamsters with better fashion sense and wheels proved by the powers that screw you. But I do try to limit the occasions. Because the infinitely predictable conclusion tends to remain the same.

Of course I wouldn't have gotten Angelus something else for his birthday in 1898 if I had known there was a curse on the horizon. Which would have gotten quite a lot more people killed and maimed in interesting ways in the long run, though not a certain gypsy tribe and their computer teaching descendants. But Angelus would never have become Angel. I would never have become human again. Now, I hated both events for a long time. Not now.

*locked*

I stopped pretending to myself I didn't want him with the soul in China. I stopped pretending I didn't want him more with the soul when I felt him going through hell to save my life during the trials. And while the sense of wrongness about being human probably won't disappear, I felt even more split into fragments after Drusilla sired me, till that alley where I died.

*unlocked*

And you can bet I would have spared myself the gloating routine and the attempt to play one last mindgame with Angel and would have simply shot the Slayer if I had known I would get staked within the next minutes. Then. I don't want the girl dead now. And that death led to a whole series of events I definitely don't wish undone, either. Which brings me to the entire problem with hindsight: it never stays the same. It constantly shifts. My conclusions ten years ago aren't the same as four years ago, and those aren't the same as the ones I draw now. Ask me to play the if only game in ten years, twenty, and I might have arrived at different conclusions yet again.

So what use is hindsight? None. The only thing to be said in its favour is that it's better than foresight, and frankly, I've seen courtiers die for coming up with that kind of pitiable praise.

hindsight, tm prompt

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