Condemned

On my way to synagogue each morning I pass the house of a chiropractor who always seems to have an old Chevrolet in his driveway. It's invariably one that needs work and I suspect that it is a hobby of his to restore them. I remember cars like them from my childhood and, I assume, he does as well. That it was his childhood too. We all remember those days fondly and, since our senses and learning ability were greater then, the images from the past are our strongest.

Nostalgia. “Those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end.” But they did. So we recapture them any way we can. However we adapt to the tools of the present and future, however we observe the norms of our times, we live in the past. We remember the music of our childhood, and the dances, and the events – both personal and national. Just as our children will do.  They will reject the trappings of our youth as we spurned those of our parents. (And, like us, they would be unable to tolerate the way of life of the distant past.)

That spurning made sense. We were smarter than our parents and more “with it.” We knew that the world was changing and that we had to change with it. George Santayana was only one of many who said it, but he is the one most remembered for the idea: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Those are strong words. Especially “condemned.” It is clearly a pejorative, having the same root as “damned,” and we accepted the wisdom of the adage and its denigration of the past without protest. A variant, that lack of knowledge of the past has doomed us to repeat it, is no better.

With age comes experience and knowledge. And, very often, conservatism. In many cultures age is considered to be accompanied by wisdom. The knowledge we acquired when we were young has been replaced by the wisdom that we gained as the years passed. So sometimes we recognize that the changes of our New Age may not benefit us or our children. Some of our childhood experiences and some of the world in which we lived then were preferable to what exists now. Yet we are taught that change is always for the better. Indeed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The implication is that no one in his right mind would want to repeat it.

Some of those past memories, though, aren't so bad. Nor are the realities they represented. Some of what has replaced them is of questionable value to many, and repulsive to some. We need parental controls on our television sets and on our computers to prevent our children from watching what we believe to be harmful to them, and to keep them from being attracted by individuals who might have a negative influence on them. We have movie and television rating systems that warn us of the threats in popular culture. We worry about our food and our environment, and we fear to let our children experience the world without proper safeguards.

But we can't stop the world and get off. What has happened over the years has come to be labeled “lifestyle creep.” However undesirable the changes that have occurred, they are now part of the scenery. They're background noise. We can't get rid of them. We can't go home again. And, according to Santayana and others, we are damned and doomed if we choose to do so.

The result is a naїve belief that things will get better – that the world of the future is certain to be superior to what we have already experienced. Perhaps that is the case, but accepting change for its own sake rather than learning from the past, is risky. Not all change is for the better. Sometimes it is better to relive a certain and well-defined past than to gamble on a future filled with unintended consequences.

To a degree, Santayana and those who shared his view were right. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned likely to repeat it.” But that's not always bad. There is no single solution or formula. What may have been the worst of times was also the best of times.

Next episode: “The Trouble With Israel” – And why the world hates her.

Time In

                                             

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.ⁱ

Kohelet was philosophical in its delineation of the events of life, and our need to accept them as necessary and unchangeable features of our existence. Birth, death, killing, healing, planting and harvesting are aspects of our lives that will always be around, and we can only benefit from that knowledge.

Shakespeare spoke in poetic terms when he outlined the ages and stagesⁱⁱ of man in “As You Like It,”ⁱⁱⁱ but he, too, employed descriptive terms without any real attempt to address the causes of these stages, or any actions that people might take to take advantage of his time or what, in fact, the time meant.^iv

Perhaps more practical even if only a few could understand it, Einstein weighed in on the issue of time. In his discussion of relativity he told us that time isn't fixed but varies with the speed and location of the observers of phenomena. His work, though theoretical, has been demonstrated to be correct, however much others, in search of fame, try to disprove him.^v

Even a more pragmatically descriptive and physiologic cataloging of human life leaves us with more questions than answers. There's no denying that language learning, frontal lobe development, sexual development, physical strength, wisdom, and old age occur at different times relating to frontal lobe maturation, hormonal secretion, and telomere length among the clinical explanations, and learning, experience, and observation derived from living itself. But although this may help us understand the passage of time, and its implications, a little better, it doesn't touch on the “nitty-gritty” of our everyday lives.

As for that nitty-gritty, we don't pay much attention to time – except to be sure we don't miss some television programs. And until that show is on we'll while the time away.

Actually we spend most of our time with the whiling and with our wishes. Whether we're waiting for summer vacation, the weekend, the kids to go to sleep, or just the completion of some unpleasant task, better times are always ahead. Little attention is paid to the idea that each moment changes us and brings us closer to death. And as we while our time away and wish that some unpleasant time or task would be completed, we are really leaving the past behind and reaching for our end.

Thomas Wolfe pointed out that “You Can't Go Home Again”; that home looks different. Physical and human changes have occurred. The houses, stores, streets, and even the vacant areas – both building lots and open land – are nothing like what you remember. What you once might have overlooked as the day-to-day differences which go on everywhere and aren't worthy of note or mention, add up, and when, after a long absence, you revisit your past, it doesn't conform to what you thought you left.

People have aged, died, and moved. It's not the same. All you're left with is nostalgia, and, as Yogi Berra said, “Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.”^vi

Not only has the place you once called “home” changed, though, but so have you. Certainly your age has changed, but so have your views and your place in life. There have been changes in your family and your friends, as well as in your level of education and employment status. And time flows in only one direction. Whatever you may have read in science fiction stories, whatever you may have seen in the movies or on television, you can't return it or yourself to what you remember.

That's not always bad, though. I suspect the some of your past would now be disappointing or, in some instances, awkward. Progress and experience temper many earlier embarrassing situations. Sometimes the passage of the years has treated old hurts. As Dorothy Parker is reported to have quipped, “Time wounds all heels.”

In any event, such speculation is meaningless. There's no going back. Maybe that's sad; maybe it's depressing. But that's the way it is. Home is where you hang your hat. Now. “You only go around once.”^vii The past may live in your memory, but nowhere else. And the stages described by Kohelet^viii and Shakespeare, however archaically phrased, are all we have. Use the season and the time well.

Next episode: “The First Step” – Atoning for the past, or accepting it.

 

i      Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3:1

ii      Periods, not proscenia and their environs.

iii    Act II Scene VII. It's part of a famous speech that begins: “All the world's a stage ...” (Proscenium and its environs, not a period.)

iv    Perhaps a future essay will discuss “meaning” itself. For the moment just go with whatever interpretation seems to work here.

v     The phenomenon is comparable to what you see in western movies when someone wants to outdraw “the fastest gun in the west.” In this circumstance, however, professional death is often substituted for the physical kind.

vi     Yogi Berra is worth reading. His words seem comical, but the ideas they depict are often quite deep.

vii    At least in this world. If, however, you believe in reincarnation, ...

viii   “The Preacher” in Kohelet.