On those thoughts of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about memory and life

Plaza Antonia Martínez. Recinto Rio Piedras. Universidad de Puerto Rico.
San Juan. PR. ("Forty years after a farewell conversation") 2021-10-08. © Eric Alvarez

A Rosina Santana, "agitadora"
To Rosina Santana, "agitator"

"Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag." (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

Memory, ” your travel bag”. Some people don't understand the importance of the  individual and the collective past. 

This is not the same as to live “looking at the past” or to live “attached to the past” or seeking those very distant events happened in your life, in an infinitely circular process of your mind. 

The past. Let me say this. Just look at it. Just learn to know it and understand it. Your memories and your understanding of your personal and of the collective past, are after all “your travel bag”. 

But don’t take me wrong. Live as intensively as you can. Don’t let the past control your present. Only know it and understand it, as those old papers in your little wood box. Write your own story and walk. That way you will be able to make your own big jump to the future.

Nothing of what I have said here is new. They are only thoughts kept in my memory...