We may seem to forget a person, a place, a state of being, a past life, but meanwhile what we are doing is selecting a new cast for the reproduction of the same drama, seeking the closest reproduction to the friend, the lover, or the husband we are striving to forget. And one day we open our eyes, and there we are caught in the same pattern, repeating the same story. How could it be otherwise? The design comes from within us. It is internal.
A man should respect one’s desires to have no past. But even more damaging was his conviction that we live by a series of repetitions until the experience is solved, understood, liquidated…
You are still related to the same kind of person because it all comes from within you, you are the one fabricating the web.
— Anaïs Nin, Seduction of the Minotaur, 1961