5:00PM
The good old days. That time when everything just worked and life just flowed. Except those times probably never existed, we just remember them that way.
I just imagined how in the future I may look back on this time of writing and glorify it—paint over the late nights, early mornings, and general oh-sweet-goodness-what-am-I-going-to-write moments. I may look back on the time locked at home as a blessing, as the opportunity that one could only dream of having: spending more quality time with one’s parents as an adult. I may forget how grueling and soul-testing being locked in the same house with the same three humans for over 55 days can be. I’m not even sure if it’s 55 days, I can’t keep count.
I talk about this as I think about earlier and how many in the US yearn for a simpler day, a time when life was better. My dad and I talked about the Trump campaign of “Make America Great Again” and how it seemed to resonate with many. When I think about it more, it may be one of those phrases that almost always resonates with a certain group (not with all, as many don’t believe the 1950s were a good time for their population or relatives). I think it plays on the fuzzy nostalgia so many of us feel and like to tell our younger humans.
“Back in my day, life was simpler. You would just go outside and play until the sun went down. You made up games, you had fun. But nowadays…” It almost always starts like that. Sometimes it’ll tell the opposite: “When I was a kid, we used to have to walk to school both ways uphill in snow up to our knees.”
It seems as if we both glorify the past and vilify it at the same time. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, as Dickens said. We seem to overlook the day-to-day details. As one psychologist, I believe Dan Gilbert, said about this, is that how we remember (and predict) things is based on our current emotional state. I wonder how many people who are currently feeling miserable think that it was a lot easier and more joyful back then? Or people who feel fantastic right now and think that it was miserable back then?
I don’t know why I went on this tangent. Something about how our memory of the past is not only subjective to how we experienced it, but also to when we are recalling those memories. This truth stuff is tough.
5:10PM
