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If you think about it, (and I recommend that you do think about it for the sake of my column) there are many ways we preserve the past. History itself is literally the story of our past. All things that are written down in diaries, journals, or essays which were at one time the present turn into the past as soon as they are put down on paper or typed on computer.
Photography, especially in our age of smart phones, records millions of images of the present which become the past in a flash. That lunch you took pictures of an hour ago and sent to your thousands of friends on social media is now a part of the past. All of our recording devices, be they video, audio, records, tape, streaming, and whatever else, are ways of saving the past. We mortals preserve the past in our minds, it's called memory.
You could say, and I will, we use devises in the present which will
retain the past for possible use in the future. Pretty deep, eh? In the business world that's called synergy, in life it's called, well, it's called life.
So, that old axiom (or is it bromide? or is it platitude? or is it chestnut?) that “there is no future in the past," as beautifully profound as it may sound, is in fact flatly untrue. The present always becomes the past and the past is prologue for the future. There I go getting deep again!
All of which brings me to the point of this week's column. My life is in the past. Having said that, I should clarify that I don't mean that my life HAS passed, I mean those things that occupy my time or interest me (here in the present) are primarily things of the past. Does that make any sense to you? If it does, please write and explain it to me. Just kidding. I know what I'm saying, I'm not a complete idiot yet.
Getting back on topic, another way of putting it is that I am, for better or worse, somewhat behind the times. I readily admit that the past holds more interest to me than does the present. Cases in point: I find watching an old Jimmy Stewart movie much more enjoyable than watching a Brad Pitt movie. I find listening to a recording of Ella Fitzgerald much more pleasurable than listening to Taylor Swift. In short, past entertainment has a quality and style that the stuff produced today just doesn't have.
I prefer traditional attire for both men and women over what most people wear today. If wearing nice slacks and a sport coat and real shoes as opposed to cargo shorts and athletic shoes makes me a man of the past, well so be it. I miss ladies in skirts and dresses and pretty shoes. I miss ladies altogether, if you want to know the truth.
Manners and decorum of the past is far more up my alley than the coarseness of today. I voted for Donald Trump, not for what he says and how he says it, but for his policy decisions. I much prefer the Ronald Reagan or the John F. Kennedy school of communication over Trump's profanity and name-calling. The vulgarity is bipartisan, f- bombs and name-calling is just as prevalent out of the mouths of the Democrat politicians today.
My life in general is richer and more enjoyable when I access the past. I acknowledge that not everything in the past was good, but one of the side benefits of digging into the past is that one can be selective. I only choose the good stuff. In the past I know exactly what I'm getting. Sadly, I know what I'll undoubtedly be getting in the present and chances are it won't live up to the best of the past.
Considering all that, you might say that the past is my present. And I ask you, who doesn't like presents?
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