I had more conversations during the week.
“No shit, dude. We’ve met you before. When are you not?...” you might rightly propose.
And that would be fair.
Fine… I was having new conversations this week. Happy now, Lydia?
Anyway…
I was having new and valuable conversations this week about valuable and relevant things.
One of which is how we view the present in relation to the past. And how judgey we can get with that.
I did a post a while ago about nostalgia, and about how that can mess with our perceptions on what current life is really like. Does back then make now better, make now worse, or is there a perspective that’s kind of harder to explain in that?
BUT, what I was planning on talking about today, was the drive to attempt to recreate the circumstances of back then in order to feel, in the now, how you felt back then. With me so far?
I promise I’m not going to talk about time paradoxes and how Back to the Future depicts time travel better than Terminator does, let alone the majesty that is Hot Tub Time Machine and its efforts to clarify how time travel really works. I feel like that’s another blog though. For another time, from a different writer and a different platform. Possibly in the future.
No, what I really mean is in attempting to recreate the circumstances and the environment in which we felt a certain way about ourselves and our lives and endeavour to pursue an outcome based on something that is EXTREMELY long odds to recreate the real value of what we are really looking for.
I was told “I was going so well then, but now things suck. I try to do what I did, but I can’t seem to get back there.”
Which is ironic to me. Given that I would argue that mostly, not always, but mostly the feelings you have about a moment in time make the moment, not the circumstances. Those feelings are the experience, not the thing. That that those feelings are what make it a moment, THE moment, sealing it in amber or oil and canvas in your head for all time.
Memories are made with emotions. That’s why you can remember the damned things. Even when you dot want to. Otherwise, its stuff that you did and saw once. The same as anything else you might do. Like the dishes. Or wiping...
Consider one of the greatest Karl Pilkington quotes, “So what do you remember?” (For anyone who knows who that is, you’ll appreciate the hilarious irony. For anyone who doesn’t… sorry. I promise it was funny. Then AND now. See what I did there?... Yeah, sorry. I’ll get on.)
Well. What DO you remember? Think about the most prominent things that ever come up in your memory. Why do you think they matter? What seared them into that bit of grey matter that sorts this stuff?
Feelings.
Emotions.
The experience. Not the event, but the feeling state within that.
We all on board as this being a thing worth agreeing on? Cool, thanks for the feedback there, Jess.
So, have we ever tried to recreate that feeling by focusing solely on the event and circumstances?
You know, focused on the controllable things to generate an outcome?
How’d that work out for you?
I’ve tried it. Guesses as to how it worked out for me?
Correct Marc. It didn’t. because I was focused on outcome, controlling things hoping to spark the feeling, expecting the feeling, and then being disappointed when it didn’t have the desired effect.
Ugh… waste of time, right?
Maybe.
It brings up a few more of those pesky questions about us and our current feeling state though.
If we are looking to create that same feeling we felt back then, what does that say about how we feel right now?
I mean, at the end of the day, that’s what we all are after right? A positive feeling state? Why else would we do some of the weird shit we do? Looking at you DJ. Honestly, the stuff that guy does to just feel normal…
If we are searching for a more desirable feeling state, does that mean we aren’t happy with the one we have? And what do we focus on to fix that? Stuff we can do, because that ALWAYS works right? Focusing on the problem so much that we don’t actually understand it? Sounds awesome…
Those more prominent memories we have. How did those come about? I mean, really? How much planning and attention to detail and structure came with those times?
Or were they just things where you were in the moment, living a life that was valuable in that moment, enjoying being you, rather than all the mental filters and controller of events to happen just so?
Typically, we humans act on what we expect, not on what we want. Which is why we do the same dumb shit that didn’t work yesterday, but it worked that one time 7 years ago, and now we do the same thing because it worked once. Even if it doesn’t feel the same, it worked once.
Maybe considering the actions as work is the problem. Maybe, by the work, we are taking ourselves further and further away from those feelings we are looking for within our lives but not focusing or allowing those feelings to come to the fore. Especially if we frame it as “work”…
Anyway, that is a boggy discussion for a different topic regarding the positive and negative framing of words being a reflection of our feeling state. Not today, Tangent Satan.
I’ll go with some simple questions then. (Yes, I know. Ha. Ha. Ha…) Possibly even help with some answers, as a novelty.
“Why can’t I get back there?”
Because time travel hasn’t been invented yet.
Because you aren’t going that way.
Because you aren’t there anymore.
Because you are focusing on what you don’t currently have.
Because you are trying to escape an unwanted feeling state right now by trying to go back, rather than dealing with it for what it is.
We aren’t trying to recreate the past. That will only ever do so much.
We are trying to understand the past to create a better present and future.
The past is a series of lessons, all there to allow you to make better decisions for your life now and later.
There is nothing wrong with reminiscing about how we felt in the past, on the proviso that we use it to help shape and reinforce how we want to feel now and later.
But don’t get trapped there, thinking it’s the same thing. Frustration awaits us there.
Not feeling how we want to feel is no way to live life. But constantly comparing that how we used to feel? Well, that’s like salt in the wounds, with a chaser of lemon juice, followed by stubbing your toe on the blister that’s on the back of your other foot.
You aren’t going that way…
Where do you want to go?
What do you want to feel?
What do you want?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“A ship does not sail with yesterday’s wind.” Louis L’Amour
Opmerkingen