<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.abc.com\/livefromla\/images\/2008\/02\/13\/smokemonster1_2.jpg\")
<\/a>In my recent visits to Triablogue<\/a>, it has been somewhat like encountering the smoke monster. I was met over there by views and attitudes that once would have been mine. As I try to extract myself from the attempt at interaction, unsubscribing from the comment updates and so on, I realize that in my late teens and probably into my early twenties, I would have loved to have had a blog like that (blogs didn\u2019t exist yet), I would have treated visitors who disagreed with me in much the same way I was treated on Triablogue, and when the visiting scholar or whoever else it was left exasperated, I would have celebrated another \u201cvictory\u201d.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the most recent episode of LOST, as in other earlier ones, we saw the \u201csmoke monster\u201d make someone confront their past, with the aim of bringing about repentance and a change in them. In my recent visits to Triablogue, it has been somewhat like encountering the smoke monster. I was met over there by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_BtqUSG7RCA0\/Sd7M5AhzrWI\/AAAAAAAAAbs\/NbPzo8mQRKk\/s200\/ben%2Bsmokey.jpg\")
<\/a>I\u2019ve asked before on this blog whether I\u2019d change my past, warn my past self<\/a> that I would change my mind about many things, and thus not to be dogmatic. Even though I never experienced a LOST-style temporal paradox, in a sense I did<\/em> warn myself. Others who had passed that way offered advice, which I often failed to heed. And sooner or later we get to offer our later perspective to others, who are where we once were. And then we\u2019re judged, and its painful, but it hopefully leads to repentance and a committment to doing something other than simply repeating the cycle as your life goes on. That doesn\u2019t mean you won\u2019t make mistakes \u2013 it just means that you\u2019ll try to make new ones<\/em> rather than simply repeating the same ones<\/em> over and over again.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-4571560825911411361?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")