Recently my brain has come up with a philosophical dilemma that I can’t solve. I know the best solution would be to stop thinking about it. Nevertheless, here it is:
Does the past matter?
By “matter’, I mean does it still have a bearing on the present. Is it still relevant? Are you responsible for your past actions, and do past events have consequences that can’t be dismissed, morally speaking? Can you renounce the past and live in the present without reference or reflection? Does “Now” matter more than yesterday or tomorrow?
If only Now matters, than nothing matters. Because once it’s over, it’s a new Now. And if nothing matters, why go on?
Or, if the past matters, and you have experienced unbearable tragedy or loss, why pretend it’s over and that you can move on? According to Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Going about my daily life, I lack motivation for almost everything, and it’s easy to just decide to go back to bed. Going back to bed isn’t a crime and it’s not fattening. It’s peaceful and comforting. Sometimes, getting up again seems futile but I’m able to take a perverse satisfaction in doing it anyway, just as Camus describes Sisyphus.
Maybe the key for me is to live in the same spirit as Sisyphus. I once told Max that the purpose of life is to withstand irritation. Don’t worry: He was probably nearly thirty and already had his own ideas. Years earlier, he told me he felt like a contraption with its wires exposed. We were talking about the advent of Prozac, and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing to eliminate one’s deep sense of melancholy. What a ridiculous question! If only a drug could do that, without ultimately killing you.
Back to the original dilemma, what are your thoughts? I want to hear them.
*Also, how much would you like to hear Shakespeare done in AAVE? My kingdom for that shit. Seriously. I certainly can’t understand it as written.
Philip K Dick believed that the New Testament was describing contemporary events, that he experienced in his personal life events directly analogous to Biblical events , and that God was communicating with him telepathically via pink phosphene lasers. And Laurie Anderson described history as a pile of wreckage that angels are trying and failing to repair. And those motherfuckers with all the money just buy their way out of past misdeeds.
My advice: be born with all the money.
Now is then. Yes, I made that up. I know how the past etc can influence and grind away in my brain. But, I’m no longer beating myself up as much with the shoulda, woulda, coulda thinking. At our age I think living in the now is best if attainable, past deeds are way too distant; future deeds are going to be fewer and farther between. Dont sleep your life away. I find going to bed to be a great escape. But, then? Stop struggling with yourself so much. You’ve been through that enough. Don’t give so much of a damn. Enjoy being old enough to say “fuck it” and do your thing.
The past really is the only thing that keeps me trudging along, with all its horrors and joyful remembrances. (I’m like Sidphus juggling alternate balls of despair and happiness, or in some Proustian nightmare now I come to think of it.)
Of course one tries to live in the moment, but that mostly only gives me succour if it involves being in bed, reading with the cat, gardening, or buying luxury red lipsticks.
<3 Get out of bed for Prince and to listen to my problems and to look at colors. The past matters because it is physically embedded in you. Your brain is wired by your past and your brain is thing to contend with. So there you go, maybe.
I'm back on my anti-depressant (+never went off mood-stabilizer)and I am truly shell-shocked from the attempt to get off of it. Withdrawals were soooooooooo awful. I had never experienced morbid depression until seratonin withdrawals.
After reading Max's book (endgame) I'm sort of on board with anarcho-primitivism. Ready to let go of the earth and push it toward re-wilding. I'm just going to love my people as much as possible and enjoy pretty colors until I go, or until global warming gets us.
“I certainly can’t understand it [Shakespeare’s original language] as written.”
Yes you can – but you have to work at it! Not that hard, though, just buy an Arden edition with footnotes to explain the text, and then try reading it *aloud* to yourself. Here is a modern ‘translation’ of his famous soliloquy which more or less sums up your predicament:
” To live, or to die? That is the question.
Is it nobler to suffer through all the terrible things
fate throws at you, or to fight off your troubles,
and, in doing so, end them completely?
To die, to sleep—because that’s all dying is—
and by a sleep I mean an end to all the heartache
and the thousand injuries that we are vulnerable to—
that’s an end to be wished for!
To die, to sleep. To sleep, perhaps to dream—yes,
but there’s there’s the catch. Because the kinds of
dreams that might come in that sleep of death—
after you have left behind your mortal body—
are something to make you anxious.
That’s the consideration that makes us suffer
the calamities of life for so long.
Because who would bear all the trials and tribulations of time—
the oppression of the powerful, the insults from arrogant men,
the pangs of unrequited love, the slowness of justice,
the disrespect of people in office,
and the general abuse of good people by bad—
when you could just settle all your debts
using nothing more than an unsheathed dagger?
Who would bear his burdens, and grunt
and sweat through a tiring life, if they weren’t frightened
of what might happen after death—
that undiscovered country from which no visitor returns,
which we wonder about and which makes us
prefer the troubles we know rather than fly off
to face the ones we don’t? Thus, the fear of
death makes us all cowards, and our natural
willingness to act is made weak by too much thinking.
Actions of great urgency and importance
get thrown off course because of this sort of thinking,
and they cease to be actions at all.
No solution, of course, to your predicament but then ‘old Bill’ wasn’t in the ‘solutions business’, merely the descriptive!
“old Bill” was a blether.
The past is important. We really only derive learning from experiences, those of the good and bad kind. Our perspective often becomes more enlightened by looking back at an event as opposed to being present, in it.
I don’t think it’s healthy to hold on to the past but it certainly serves a great purpose. How else can we learn from our mistakes?
Well, ‘Suspended’, ‘old Bill’ certainly did have plenty to say, or at least, write about and in doing so he held a mirror up to us all, er, whilst hiding himself behind the mirror!
‘Sometimes, getting up again seems futile but I’m able to take a perverse satisfaction in doing it anyway’
Thank you for articulating so perfectly where I’m currently at. ‘Working’ through it, and this small glimmering perfect moment of connectedness your words created is the essence of what I love about your courageous writing.
Al – Thank you so much for your comment. It means everything to me!
Romeo – Okay.
Dj – If I could follow your advice, I wouldn’t need to write!
Ali – I love this, good.
David Duff – Thanks!!!! I could pretty much understand this particular passage, but your translation really helped.
Saffron – Wow. Thank you. What a useful perspective!
Suspended – I can’t learn from my mistakes, when I review them, it’s just agony.