Best Not To Dwell

Day 1203.

In the movie 1917 they speak of the notion “Best not to Dwell”.

Shall I spend a week not dwelling?

I understand this sentiment was of it’s time - 1917 amid the horrors of a war when the army needed those young men to accept the horrors they experienced and carry on in the face of more horrors to come. But many came home shell shocked, ridden with PTSD to a world with no culture for working through their trauma, expected to move on. The same with WWII and Vietnam.

My Dad was in WWII and when you do the maths, he was just 19 at the height of the horrors he witnessed. He would never speak of it apart from the occasional funny anecdote.

I know what happens when I try to “not dwell”. It turns inward and eats away at me and comes out sideways in ill-health and all manner of unhelpful ways, grinding me to an impasse. I can see that from my journal.

So for me, it isn’t best not to dwell.

I’ll keep on dwelling.