justoffal
Senator
I started looking through some old pictures the other day. It's been awhile since I did that nostalgic stroll through memory lane and frankly I'm not sure whether I actually enjoy it or I just do it to torture myself. I suppose it's one of those things that's inevitable every now and then.
I don't pretend to be much to look at but one does in the course of habitual living develop a self image that we expect to see in the mirror sometime after waking and before coffee. I guess we either settle on that image or try to change it but the point is we grow accustomed to our here and now such as it is. Jumping back twenty five or thirty years with the aid of old photographs or letters or even some misplaced momento can be fun but it can also be a latent form of culture shock.
I often think that we do not prepare ourselves well enough for that effect when we do take that journey into the past. It can make us smile but it can also unnerve us. Oddly, unlike many others that I hear talking fondly of the past with words like " I wish I could go back there and do that again! " Or " What I wouldn't give to be 16 again " I do not ever wish to revisit it. I am happy with where the past is and that would be in the past.
When I look back on those years of youth and vibrance I don't just see the youth and the vibrance I also see stupidity, horror clothing, long hair and bad choices. I am reminded of once dearly held political ideals that turned to garbage and of clarion calls for this cause or that hope which ultimately amounted to nothing. What an idiot! I wouldn't do it again for all the wealth on earth. Once is enough forever!
Did I really live in the 70's? It all seems so unreal right now. I guess I miss some of the music but when I really listen to the words I wonder what I ever saw in some of it to begin with. So much lack of direction, so unfocused and reactionary with very little attention given to the intellectual process and most of the attention to hormones, booze and substances. Dammit we virtually glorified the empty and meaningless lifestyle back then!! I like to call it the pupae stage of North American development, a stage you can't avoid but one you sure as hell don't want to repeat.
Memories are a good thing, maybe even the bad ones; It is important however to remember exactly what they are, memories. The ghosts of our past can be helpful in making future choices but I realize now more than ever that they must never be allowed to dominate our thinking or haunt our lives to the point where they hinder our progress. We are creatures of growth and when we stop growing.....well I don't want to say it but you know where I'm going with that. If and when I find those old bell bottoms not only will I not try them on I'm pretty sure they'll go where they belong, in the dumpster. Who knows when the moment arrives I might get sentimental but you know I really doubt it.
JO
I don't pretend to be much to look at but one does in the course of habitual living develop a self image that we expect to see in the mirror sometime after waking and before coffee. I guess we either settle on that image or try to change it but the point is we grow accustomed to our here and now such as it is. Jumping back twenty five or thirty years with the aid of old photographs or letters or even some misplaced momento can be fun but it can also be a latent form of culture shock.
I often think that we do not prepare ourselves well enough for that effect when we do take that journey into the past. It can make us smile but it can also unnerve us. Oddly, unlike many others that I hear talking fondly of the past with words like " I wish I could go back there and do that again! " Or " What I wouldn't give to be 16 again " I do not ever wish to revisit it. I am happy with where the past is and that would be in the past.
When I look back on those years of youth and vibrance I don't just see the youth and the vibrance I also see stupidity, horror clothing, long hair and bad choices. I am reminded of once dearly held political ideals that turned to garbage and of clarion calls for this cause or that hope which ultimately amounted to nothing. What an idiot! I wouldn't do it again for all the wealth on earth. Once is enough forever!
Did I really live in the 70's? It all seems so unreal right now. I guess I miss some of the music but when I really listen to the words I wonder what I ever saw in some of it to begin with. So much lack of direction, so unfocused and reactionary with very little attention given to the intellectual process and most of the attention to hormones, booze and substances. Dammit we virtually glorified the empty and meaningless lifestyle back then!! I like to call it the pupae stage of North American development, a stage you can't avoid but one you sure as hell don't want to repeat.
Memories are a good thing, maybe even the bad ones; It is important however to remember exactly what they are, memories. The ghosts of our past can be helpful in making future choices but I realize now more than ever that they must never be allowed to dominate our thinking or haunt our lives to the point where they hinder our progress. We are creatures of growth and when we stop growing.....well I don't want to say it but you know where I'm going with that. If and when I find those old bell bottoms not only will I not try them on I'm pretty sure they'll go where they belong, in the dumpster. Who knows when the moment arrives I might get sentimental but you know I really doubt it.
JO
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