What is "the past"?

[onesteptwostep]

Have you head of the phase: 'in the corridors of history'?

---

The phase seems to encase the past in some black and white history, as if ancient and verdant, either beckoning us of our reverence and our mystified, or even at times our horror or disgust.

But what is the past, really?

Does it exist? Has it existed? Will it exist?

What makes the past the past, and what allows for us to remember it? Is it a special element or inanimate entity of somesort?

--

What is the past to you, or what does the past supposed to represent or mean to us?

And conversely, does the future exist?

 

[SpaceYeti]

Are you high? The past is the stuff that has happened before now.

 

[onesteptwostep]

Let's get high together.

Does the past exist?

 

[Yellow]

Yes. The past exists. Or more precisely, it existed. Whether the information carried forward gives an accurate picture of events and situations, that's another question.

You know, a decade or so ago, my grandmother's oldest sister was talking to her about something from their childhood in North Dakota. She mentioned to us all that Lawrence Welk used to play at their local dance hall. My grandmother argued that it didn't happen because she'd have remembered it. Her sister, 14 years her senior, said, "just because it happened before you came around, it doesn't mean it never happened. The world didn't pop into existence the day you were born." My grandmother was in her 70s at the time, so the exchange blew my mind a little. It occured to me that the past remains in the present as long there is someone alive that remembers it, but that it is slowly transformed into the distant, abstract thing that just lingers, depending on second hand memories, some things making the cut and the rest fading into present nonexistence. Yet it happened. It all happened, unremembered, lost forever.

In all fairness, I was probably high at the time.

 

[Jennywocky]

Yes. The past exists. Or more precisely, it existed. Whether the information carried forward gives an accurate picture of events and situations, that's another question.

You know, a decade or so ago, my grandmother's oldest sister was talking to her about something from their childhood in North Dakota. She mentioned to us all that Lawrence Welk used to play at their local dance hall. My grandmother argued that it didn't happen because she'd have remembered it. Her sister, 14 years her senior, said, "just because it happened before you came around, it doesn't mean it never happened. The world didn't pop into existence the day you were born." My grandmother was in her 70s at the time, so the exchange blew my mind a little. It occured to me that the past remains in the present as long there is someone alive that remembers it, but that it is slowly transformed into the distant, abstract thing that just lingers, depending on second hand memories, some things making the cut and the rest fading into present nonexistence. Yet it happened. It all happened, unremembered, lost forever.

In all fairness, I was probably high at the time.

Yeah, that's the kind of shit that leaves my head spinning sometimes when I think about how in about 70 years once everyone who knew me directly is gone, I'll pretty much be nothing except for a name on a tombstone somewhere and/or a few faded photos in an album (well, aside from the wonders of the internet where you can be cannibalized as a meme).

It reminds me of that bit from watchmen:

Lawrence Welk, huh? I remember watching that on TV when I was very young.

 

[Brontosaurie]

Are you high? The past is the stuff that has happened before now.

<3

 

[EditorOne]

The past is the future waiting to come around again on Arlo Guthrie's guitar.

 

[onesteptwostep]

The past my grandparents talk about are.. people going to the mountains during the Korean War, only to be shoot during the massive confusion, how they were scammed in Seoul, and how bad the economy is right now.... and then there's the occasional 'to hell with Japan!' mantra- is which all too amusing, scary, understandable, and perplexing all at the same time.

It's sobering but it makes me wonder and have reverence for them, for the sacrifices they made, to allow us peace in our lifetimes.

It also always makes me wonder what the nature of "life" is as well.

 

[Brontosaurie]

People should be more critical of the past.

People go into a museum and are like "Oh, this is the important stuff because this got recorded. I should be cultured and give a fuck."

No, it's the douchebag stuff. It's the half-a-million-slaves-to-build-a-pointless-monument stuff. It's the wow-i-happen-to-be-in-power-i'm-basically-a-god stuff. It's stupid shit and one shouldn't give a fuck. It's mostly a giant pile of bad ideas and extremely inefficient organization, all steeped in cringe-worthy vanity. Yes, we can learn from it, sure - but with the way people view history that possibility is little more than a transparent excuse for illegit admiration and sucking of long-shriveled dicks.

The imagined past of some unnamed peasant who wasn't even permitted to have subjective awareness is way more relevant to holistic understanding than the recorded past of a king.