ON PURPOSE: an essay in seven parts (5/7)

V. History: The Past

Once I divorced a consortium of illustrious façades when really being an amalgam of things otherwise. Like an abusive husband trying to win back his ex-wife with flattery that is just really nonsense, they highlighted-stressed-emphasized-even heightened the fact that they had tradition. Tradition! They might have well just went to the tip of the highest mountain to echo their plea for the world to hear: “We have the past! THE PAST! We might not have the present, and we don’t know if we have the future, but we have the past! We must be respected and honored because we have the past! Please! Please! How could you not see? We have the PAST! We hold the past so hard that we are tempted to call it the present! Oh, so attractive the past she is! I have everything I need with the past in my hands. My life is complete with you, the past. Oh, were would I be without you? Oh, the past (sigh)…”

What makes tradition so great? Why should a tradition be honored just because it has been long-established? When something has been past down from generation to generation so long that the origin becomes mythicized all motions are meaningless and devoid of reason–an action only for the sake of (some surreptitious) tradition. Some may say tradition is a way to pay respect to the past. I must disagree. Once the meaning is depleted the acts become ill-mannered mockery. If the dead live on, I bet they are shaking their heads in shame. I cannot believe we have not outgrown rituals yet! We can send a man into outer space. We can fly. We can send messages to one another instantaneously on palmed-sized devices. We can manipulate nature. But, but we still have these paganesque rituals!

We need to wake up. I shall resound this warning: The past is now dead and passed the point of no return. The future is too to those whose present is just exercise in experiencing the past yet again. Let us make a pact to not look back but instead to look forward and thusly move forward to a better future. Be like a clock. Time can only move forward. It cannot go back or skip ahead. It just goes on and on and on in a steady pace. We cannot look back. We cannot return to what was but now is not.

I learned this lesson at a young age. I was at a fair. Every suburb, town, county. and village in America celebrates the fall by means of a fair. They have games to play, beer to drink, music to dance to, grilled food to eat, livestock to look at, and prizes to win. When I was seven years old my family went to the Goshen Fair. This is one of the more popular fairs in the state of Connecticut. It was there I received a helium filled balloon. I cannot recall how or why but that is not important. What was important was that I really liked the design on it. I was planning to save it forever. Once it lost all its air, I would fold it up and store it in my dairy. It really was an aesthetically pleasing balloon. However other things at the fair were equally if not more so exciting. In all the enthusiasm I let go of my pretty little helium filled balloon. Time stood still for a moment as I watched it float up up up up and upward into the lapis lazuli sunset. I watched my cherished prize float into the sky never to return. And that is the lesson here: no return.

Life bares no return.