…..I don’t ever wanna go back to that innately beguiling place. Yeah, yeah, I know that 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 unadulterated mess and maybe (likely) 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 house lights flickered on and off signifying mischievous electrical gremlins were in the process of deciding whether they wanted to pull the plug on the grid completely to inflict even more havoc into one’s personal life. The past would have you believe that every day was a stroll through a redolent lilac garden and that Nirvana had at long last been found 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 evil and drudgery and every unpleasantry 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 constructed of flimsy Dollar Store 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—yet 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 undeniably smarter now as you struggle to navigate through 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, intractable problems. It isn’t and never will be. Those problems were just as nagging and intractable back then as they are today; “callow you” were just too credulous to realize it. The past will always look highly attractive and superior to the present—That’s purely the nature of the flirtatious beast!—but don’t believe such nonsense for even a nanosecond. The past makes a habit of lying indiscriminately and today is no different. These problems you are currently facing and bemoaning are uncommonly challenging, no doubt, but looking backward in time is not a solution for any of them. Work on solving your problems predicated upon today’s terms and circumstances exclusively. 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 masquerading under the alias of “the past”; that deceitful asshole lies and distorts the truth all the time and, what’s worse, it takes great pleasure in doing so. As a result, the shape-changing past inflicts a lot of needless pain upon undiscerning individuals who insist on looking backward rather than forward…..
Fred's Soapbox 