The Past

 

   I can’t help but notice how the past is a very constant theme of all of our lives, collectively.

For starters, a lot of product advertising, product names, stories told through movies and even a lot of writing particularly on Substack, harks back to the past. 

I ripped open a bag of food item last week, and my brain is drawing a complete blank now, but the brand was titled ‘Mangamma’. I am not entirely sure what Mangamma means (a Telugu word), but I believe it may mean grandmother.

The next day, I opened another packet of food, and my brain is abandoning me again, but the brand was titled ‘Ammamma’ which is a Telugu word probably meaning grandmother, too.

These words are rooted in tradition. Choosing them as brand names for food seems to be about anchoring the product in legacy - a bygone heritage. The past.

There were a cluster of internet posts I saw a few days later that talked about humans being as disconnected from nature as our ancestors were deeply connected with it. It struck me that the notion was centered on looking back at the past as something glorious, better than today. 

This is not to deny the importance of grounding in nature and being one with it, we are nature too, but it seemed to me that a way of living practiced in the past was nostalgically longed for. 

What if early humans had started out in a technologically advanced world? Would we still be looking back at that past as being better than maybe if we had a more natural way of life today? 

After all, we’re gazing into the past when we look up at the stars in the sky, aren’t we? Their light is reaching us many, many years after they emitted it. Even sunlight reaches us about eight minutes later.

What is time then? 

And if the past is truly such a huge part of our existence, why is there a focus on leaving it behind to build a better future?

I intend my questions to be mostly rhetorical. These are thoughts stewing in my brain as I try to move away from an unpleasant past. 

Postscript: I’m watching The Mummy Returns, one of my all-time favorite movies, right after penning this article. The universe sure has a special way of delivering messages. When Rick, Eve, Ardeth, Jonathan and Izzy are off on the dirigible to rescue Alex, Ardeth receives a message from Horus (the eagle) and states, “If a man does not embrace his past, he has no future.”