The past.
What value does the past hold?
As a person who has spent a great deal of time digging around in my own past, and the pasts of others, I find myself wondering if the past matters at alll.
Why should we care if this person did this thing to that person?? Does it really matter?
Even if the imprint of the past impacts the present, so what? We still have free choice.
Before I got to bed tonight, I thought I would throw this question out to my brilliant readers.
What’s your take?? How does the past matter to you?? Or does it?
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The present is built on the past and the future is built on the present. If the past didn’t matter, then every moment throughout history would stand independent of every other moment. It would be cosmic anarchy.
If we do not remember our past actions, we are unlikely to learn from them. Whether they were objectively good or bad, they were lessons. Life would be meaningless if we ignored them.
I think what is more important than the past, is how we react to to it and let it affect our lives.
I love Heart in San Fransisco’s term ‘cosmic anarchy’. And I agree that the past is crucial to any sort of comprehension of ‘now’. If I hadn’t lived all the days leading up to this one, I would not be me. The dark alongside the light, both.
I cherish the past and am a great saver of mementos. I also look forward to things with great relish. And I never rush my way through the day I’m in because how else can I enjoy myself?
Perhaps my accepting nature makes it easy to be me. It’s not that nothing terrible ever happens to me. But when it does, I look it squarely in the eye, allow myself to be miserable for a reasonable amount of time and then embrace what that horrible time did for me. I do think that writing fiction gives me a different outlook on painful character growth, because I know I certainly put my fictional darlings through hell – on purpose. But if I don’t, what is the point? And basically, that’s my take on life, too. If there’s nothing to deal with, what is the point?
The past is where we learned everything we know.
I like what people are saying-that we learned from things that happened in the past, but it’s probably not a good idea to hang on to everything. Take what was useful and apply it to now, let the rest go.
Well said, Tommie. I couldn’t agree more.
I think some are signed up by their nature to care about the past. In a community there have always been archivists. I am one who likes to keep track …and follow tracks of the past too.
The past is important inasmuch as it affects your future. Hold on to the things that create your identity and your strongest memories. The practical side of me says that if I pick something up and can’t remember the story behind it or the function of it, than I probably shouldn’t have it.
I think the past matters in as much as you have to use it to inform your present. When my pants feel tight, I have to ask myself if I’ve been eating healthy and exercising right or have I been downing the cheesecake bites from Trader Joe’s. And then I have to be accountable and honest and then move on from there. There’s no point in repeating the past but also no point in endlessly rehashing it.
The past is important because everything we did and didn’t learn has impacted who we are TODAY. What’s important is to be able to let go off the past and not hold onto the pain/joy of the memories and get lost enough to forget to live today.
sometimes, i think we need others (such as counselors) to help us process the past so that we are able to live in the present.
I think the past is fascinating. I like to find out how things were.
Learning about the past, helps us to feel a continuity with all the people and events that have gone before, helps us to feel that our existence is a great continent for our exploration, not merely the tiny island of our present.
Well I feel my past has made me who I am today…..so yes the past means a lot to me…for the good and for the bad….but I try not to dwell on the past…as that is what it is…the past….I acknowledge it and then do what I can with it…and move on….it’s a little more detailed than that but thats the condenced version.