Living in the past

'To live in the past' is an expression, often accompanied by negative connotations, used to describe those who spend 'excessive' amounts of time walking memory lanes. Focus on the present. Keep looking forward. Forgive and forget. We are told again and again that we should leave our past behind.

The past defines us; we live the world and understand ourseleves by reflecting on our experiences. I was reminded of this by Seneca's 'On the Shortness of Life', an essay recommended by an acquaintance during a casual conversation. Below, I include an extract about the past.
"Life is divided into three parts: past, present and future. Of these, the present is brief, the future doubtful, the past certain. For this last is the category over which fortune no longer has control, and which cannot be brought back under anyone's power. Preoccupied people lose this part; for they have no leisure to look back at the past, and even if they had it, there's no pleasure in recalling something regrettable. [...] Yet this is the part of our existence that is consecrated and set apart, elevated above all human vicissitudes and removed beyond fortune's sway, and harried by no poverty, no fear, no attacks of disease. This part is neither disrupted nor stolen away; our possession of it is everlasting and untroubled. Days are present only one at a time, and these only minute by minute; but all the days of time past will attend you at your bidding, and they will allow you to examine them and hold onto them at your will - something which preoccupied people have no time to do. It takes a tranquil and untroubled mind to roam freely over all parts of life; but preoccupied minds as if under the yoke, cannot turn and look backward. Their life therefore disappears into an abyss; and just as it does no good to pour any amount of liquid into a vessel if there is nothing at the bottom to receive and keep it, so it makes no difference how much time we are given if there is nowhere for it to settle, and it's allowed to pass through the cracks and holes of the mind."
Our past, our story, shapes our identity. Shared history connects us to people and places. we feel pride and shame of those whose stories we consciously or unconsciously believe to be intertwined with our own.We feel patriotism, belonging, when the stories of our country men and women are ones we can relate to.

We struggle to revisit events coloured in shame, regret, anger or sadness. And yet, perhaps, it is these events which lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves, catalysing directed change. We often fear reflection or fail to make time for it, but nothing is to be feared, everything is to be understood. As was said by Plato, an unexamined life, after all, is not worth living.

 
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Published on May 14, 2017 00:59
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