One Art

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

(Elizabeth Bishop)

Funny... Do you know how to lose, guys? Do you know how to handle a situation in which you have lost something? Have you mastered this art? Because it is an art.. I have mastered one side of it: the losing of material things. Man, it's great! I remember as I used to freak out months and years ago everytime I lost something. I needed hours or even days till I go through the whole thing. Sucks! Then, bit by bit, I began trying to figure out why it is so hard for me to lose things. Even when it was not about losing anything particular. I just didn't feel comfortable losing things..

And then I started to lose; I started to lose intentionally and absolutely on purpose. I just wanted to learn how to lose. Just a simple example: I had so many songs on my laptop which I didn't listen to anymore. And they took so much space of my HDD! And for a long time I didn't have the courage to delete them. You know why? Because these were all songs from my childhood or, rarely, bound to a particular moment or experience in my life. This is not bad you would say. No, it is not! But, man, I never ever listened to these songs! And I needed my HDD space!

I just began deleting them, losing them. At first it was hard! Damn, it was hard! But I have mastered the art of losing to a degree yet when I'm not afraid anymore! Because it is the emotion which remains. And the emotion has not to be necessarily attached to an object. To cherish the emotion although having lost the object it was attached to - that's what this art is all about!

Do you know how to lose, guys?