No doubt, at some point in our lives, in our daily conversations with family and friends, we have fondly recalled “the good old days” – remembering how it used to be.
Stuart McAllister in his book: Ah, the Good Old Days describes it this way:
“Nostalgia is an interesting thing. It embellishes our memories and makes the past look and feel so much better than it really was. I have a relative whose skill as a storyteller is almost unsurpassed. Names, dates, and places are poured forth with an attention to detail that is astonishing. Listening in, one can smell the air, sense the mood, and really enter into the story being …”
In the course of our lifetimes, we have all discovered, “There is a time for everything.” Whatever it is about time, we all manage it in d樂威壯
ifferent (and sometimes strange) ways. For some of us, we live perpetually in the past. We treasure those relationships, experiences, and places, those loves won and lost. For others, we are always hoping to live; the best is yet ahead, somewhere over the rainbow when things will be wonderful.
I often wonder if this is a symptom of an inability to dwell in the present. In a contemporary book called Elsewhere USA, the author cites the challenges to living a focused or attentive life due to the invasive conditions of modern technology and the press of incessant demands. The writer outlines how many of us are seldom present in anything we do. We are not present to our spouses, not present to our children, not present to our friends, not present even in our imaginations as the desire of being elsewhere overrules all else.
In the story The Princess Bride, the hero Wesley says, “Life is pain…Get used to it.” While perhaps a bit overstated (it is a comedy), Wesley’s thought captures something of the struggle, the real hardships we all encounter in our journeys across time. Perhaps the present is indeed so saturated by real pain, tragedy, or emotional deadness that the only available option is to flee to the past as solace from the present.
I certainly don’t mean (in any sense) to devalue the role of telling old stories or recalling old memories. After all, they are a huge part of what makes life rich. However, as the wise sage said: “Surely the good old days exist in the here and now.”
