Liar

…..I don’t ever wanna go back to that innately beguiling place.  Yeah, yeah, it is alluring as all get out and beckons with the magnetism of a ravishing seductress, but the past is a fraud, a liar, a destroyer of youthful dreams.  It can never be trusted.  The circumstances surrounding me today are hopelessly fucked up and a complete mess and maybe beyond redemption, but the past is not the answer for any of that; it is no tonic or remedy or secret sauce.  Rather, the past grossly misrepresents—lies even—with regard to its true underlying character.  Things were never so good back then as they appear nowadays.  Not all roses and no thorns.  Not all laughter and no pain.  Not all days blessed with radiant sunshine and a pronounced absence of stormy nights showcasing howling winds and pelting hail as the house lights flickered on and off while mischievous electrical gremlins decided whether they wanted to pull the plug completely to create even more havoc in your personal life.  The past would have you believe that every day was a stroll through a redolent lilac garden and that no ill was ever visited upon anyone, but that is all a big lie.  A huge, disgusting lie!!!  Bad things did happen to you back then—Lots and lots of them!—but for some unknown reason a mammoth filter has since been erected between the past and the present which screens out all evil and leaves in its wake nothing but rosy memories and sweet reminiscences.  Forget that deceitful shit already!  It’s all a charade, a big fib, a house built of cards.  The past is quite simply a mirror reflection of the present, only it features a younger version of your present day self—and you are inarguably a substantially wiser, more enlightened, less naive individual now than you were back then—but with that aforementioned ginormous filter separating the two timeframes.  Nothing more and nothing less.  You are exactly the same person now as you were back in “the good old days”.  Same person, only living now in a totally different era.  So don’t hyperventilate over the past and believe that it is some sort of panacea for the present and a benign refuge from today’s nagging problems.  It isn’t and never will be.  The past will always look highly attractive and superior to the present—That’s just the nature of the flirtatious beast!—but don’t believe that nonsense for a second.  The past makes a habit of lying indiscriminately and today is no different.  These problems you are currently facing are uncommonly challenging, no doubt, but looking backward in time is not the solution for any of them.  Work on solving them on today’s terms only.  The present can be brutal and bleak and unforgiving, but at least it’s inherently honest.  The same cannot be said of that dishonest scoundrel going by the name of the past; it lies all the time and, what’s worse, it takes great pleasure in doing so and in the process inflicts a lot of needless pain…..