Men look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back
The modern mind is forced towards the future by a certain sense of fatigue, not unmixed with terror, with which it regards the past. It is propelled towards the coming time; it is, in the exact words of the popular phrase, knocked into the middle of next week. And the goad which drives it on thus eagerly is not an affectation for futurity. Futurity does not exist, because it is still future. Rather it is a fear of the past; a fear not merely of the evil in the past, but of the good in the past also. The brain breaks down under the unbearable virtue of mankind. There have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate; so many great efforts of monumental building or of military glory which seem to us at once sublime and pathetic. The future is a refuge from the fierce competition of our forefathers. The older generation, not the younger, is knocking at our door. It is agreeable to escape, as Henley said, into the Street of By-and-Bye, where stands the Hostelry of Never. It is pleasant to play with children, especially unborn children. The future is a blank wall on which every man can write his own name as large as he likes; the past I find already covered with illegible scribbles, such as Plato, Isaiah, Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Napoleon. I can make the future as narrow as myself; the past is obliged to be as broad and turbulent as humanity. And the upshot of this modern attitude is really this: that men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
Your example
It seems that there is a very specific area in the brain which could be called poetic memory and which records what has charmed us, what has moved us, what gives our life its beauty.
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity... It is, in short, the subject of the history of the Grail. Only a predestined being has the ability to ask another: what is your torment? And he doesn't have it when he enters life. He has to go through years of dark night.
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Source: Letter to the poet Joë Bousquet, 1942
Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.
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Source : LIFE magasine, May 2, 1955
Almost everyone in the world is self-absorbed within themselves. They regard themselves as the most important beings. People rarely speak bad about themselves. They are the heroes in their own story no matter how much entanglement of lies and bullshit is needed to achieve a gratifying and satisfying version of the tale.
By observing their actions, you could trace back their thought pattern, intentions, interest, and vision. Stop for a moment and analyze the action. Stop caring about what they say, what they think about how the world should be, how everyone can execute their best, or why the world is so messed up. They speak whatever hell it takes to sound amazing. Listen to their actions. Listen only and only to their actions.
We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.