The past that doesn’t come back

Hello friends!

In these last few weeks, one of my texts started to appear in first place on google, a text that I never designed for this purpose, as it is not a specifically psychology text. But it started to appear because many people are participating in a national contest and the theme was exactly the theme of the title of the text – The influence of music in our lives.

Coincidence or not, it was curious to reread a text that I had written, in a more playful and less theoretical way, at the request of a dear friend of the site. And today I had again the strong feeling that made me write this text about music. Music, in addition to directly affecting our emotional state, is capable of, in seconds, transporting us to another time in our imagination.

And being taken back to my psychology graduation days, on the famous ABC 102, by the songs we listened to so much, I can’t help but think about how time, psychological, is extremely mysterious. Not only does this past never come back… but as the child says: “why do we remember the past and can’t remember the future?”

But what astonishes me is the fact that there is no going back, even though, as the historian Jankelevitch, immersed in the theme of history, time and the past, dared to say: “That which was can no longer have not been: from now on, that fact mysterious, profoundly obscure of having been is your viaticum for eternity.” (Vladimir Jankelevitch).

I mean, not only is it extremely incredible that the past was (as good as it was!), but it also can’t be again. The fact of having been will make what was, be…eternally. Do you understand?

What was, was. And it will have been the way it was… forever.

the nostalgia of the past

When we get like this, nostalgic as old people, for a simple song by a band, we can start to imagine that the past was fantastic. Like movie trailers that summarize only the best scenes and leave out the uninteresting, boring or connecting scenes. And this is another very curious aspect of time. Why do we have to make this selection based on what we feel?

I mean, if I’m feeling extremely happy and nostalgic about a certain past, why can I practically only remember the good thing?

And, likewise, why if I’m sad, can I only focus on what didn’t work? In what was inconvenient, in what did the thought and the external reaction not agree?

Well, this is a very interesting fact and we will certainly return to it in another text, if there is demand.

Enjoy the time

Taking advantage of time… this is another idea that seems to arise, as if necessary, when looking at the past. Maybe you think: “I should have enjoyed more”… or not. Maybe I took too much advantage. Anyway, no matter what the evaluation, another mysterious fact of our existence in time, is that the present moment will also be a past soon.

If it doesn’t feel like the past tomorrow, it will feel like the past a few years from now. Should we enjoy more today, do more, feel more so that – in the future – this date will be meaningful?

Like the ad that says… “What if you weren’t afraid?”

And like Alice in Wonderland, jam today!

jam today

“When Alice was having tea with the Mad Hatter, she noticed that there was no jam. So she asked for jam, and he said, “Jam is served every other day. ”Alice complained: ”But yesterday there was no jam either!” ‘That’s right’ replied the Mad Hatter. ‘The rule is this: jam always yesterday and jam tomorrow, never jam today…because today is not yesterday or tomorrow.

According to Osho, one of the most contradictory subjects one could meet and therefore worthy of note explains: “And this is how you are living: jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, never jam today. And that’s where the jam is! So you imagine; you live in a doped up, drowsy state. You have completely forgotten that this moment is the only real moment. And if you want some contact with reality, wake up here and now!”

A bright future ahead

I just mentioned the little boy’s leading question about why we don’t remember the future. The future, in the line of time, is the most… more open to adjectives. The future is like a blank sheet of paper, it is uncertain, it is bright, it is a world of possibilities, it is Brazil, the country of the future…

Anyway, the future does not exist. But it doesn’t exist like the past that doesn’t come back. The past doesn’t exist either, after all, the past doesn’t exist anymore, because it already was, even if it exists in our memory.

Is that you? Can you remember your future?

Past present Future

What is most curious when thinking about the continuity of past, present and future is the question that, if other choices had been made, the present would be different. Just as if we make other choices today, the future will be different.

Perhaps absurdly different. After all, “there are always reasons to emigrate for those who are not in bed”, I mean, what prevents you from going to live in Iceland? To change jobs? Of having or adopting ten children? Starting to speak Danish or dancing tango?

Could it be that the limits, barriers, fears, obstacles, justifications for not doing – all of this – for so long – isn’t it time to end?

Or will it be that on the day of our death, we’ll ask to go back, have one more chance to do it differently?

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