Succinct Shots #10: Is The Past Present?
This is part of a series called Succinct Shots. It’s based on a practice of stream-of-consciousness writing. It’s my own variation on The Artist’s Way Morning Pages, a journaling technique to trigger creativity. Most of these are from a reflective period and sway towards self-help sentiments.
The melancholy and angst of getting older plays a mind game with your thoughts. In your mind you feel young. Your body reminds you that the recovery takes longer, the movements creak more often.
There are more and more reminders from the outside as rock stars and politicians die to be left a memory. Many of the things that made your youth feel exciting are passing on. It is a strange dichotomy to be in your sixties and still harbour feelings from the 1960s and 70s.
The new world is both familiar and distant. There is a sadness of lost time and lost opportunity. There is more concentration on what is missing over the reality of what is present. This focal point is inevitable. There is more time in the past than in the future.
This dilemma makes it harder to focus on the priorities of the present. It makes looking forward fuzzy.
For the past is clear. The past built the present person that is not moving forward at the same pace. The longing for clarity of the future is prejudiced by past decisions and pathways already chosen.
A return to the past is not what is called for. But a return to the person with clear intent and clear direction is what is needed at older age. There is still a future to live but the transition is not smooth.
Maybe youth thrives on the unknown, maybe it is an energizer. But without a long view due to reduced remaining years, it becomes a burden. The outside world seems like a place of yesteryear, not a place to discover. It is a place to figure out with the experiences and exposure of a two-thirds lived lifetime.
There is no more balance. There’s been a shift to offset the long future with a short one. This is a troublesome dynamic. It can lead to wallowing in the past too much. It can create barriers for living out your future with the same energy as the past.
So how to bypass the past and focus on the remaining future with total passion and promise? How to remember the person of the past and transform him to occupy the present. At 62, the dilemma is not debilitating, it is a nuisance. But it must not linger and trap you on a path that looks backward only.