The present distorts the past, or at least past memories. It’s like being stuck in that house of mirrors down at the county fair carnival, where in every direction you turn you immediately notice that your body shape has been grotesquely and unflatteringly distorted by some arcane law of refractory physics. Such is the case with memories as well; they too become ridiculously distorted while looking back through the devious prism of time. And typically in a favorable manner; have you ever noticed that?? Very seldom unfavorably. Very seldom unflattering. Isn’t this fact interesting–the fact that overall favorability of a memory increases in a direct relationship to the number of years we travel backward in time? And why should this be the case? Why does the past shine with a luster that it never came close to possessing at the time something happened? Well…..because we subliminally wish for this to happen. We desperately rely on the highly malleable and compliant past to be our security blanket relative to the harsh present and–even more portentous–the perilous unknown future, and thus it automatically succumbs to this persistent desire of ours. The past everlastingly looks more attractive simply because we wish that to be the case.
Fred's Soapbox 