Why the past is better than the future
I realized whenever my life gets more difficult I wish I could go back in time to “the good old days”. Except in the good old days I also wanted to go further back to other good old days until I was a kid, but only during summer vacation.
Why does this happen? What’s wrong with me?
You see, the past is predictable. It’s already happened, so we know what happens next. The future, in extreme contrast, is unknowable except for one thing. One thing we know will happen with 100% certainty. We die. Our life ends. And we don’t know when exactly that will be. And if life gets harder suddenly our impending death becomes more of a reality. If times are good and you’re making money and you’re accomplishing things you want to do, then the thought of death disappears and being mortal sounds like an abstract opinion and not a fact of reality.
That’s why the past will always be better than the future. Future you will be dead. Past you experienced life and even more life and things turned out okay. For a time.
When life becomes difficult, not even planning can make things better. How do you plan for not existing anymore? I used to plan things, like “I’ll write for Medium every day because I want to get my super smart thoughts across to others” or “I’ll start to work on thumbnails for my Youtube channels and maybe I can make that into a sidehustle”. Essentially, any little plan that involved making more money made me feel better. But what if I knew I was going to starve to death after financial hardship three years from now? Well, then, the future seems bleak. But I will die someday anyway, and then I will be dead for the rest of eternity. At that point, what did any of my work, my writing, my thumbnails, my side businesses, my day job work, what did any of it matter?
When I look to the past, I see things. Like, I see that such-and-such event happened so I could end up at this other place and have this other opportunity. It all seems so serendipitous in hindsight. But everything that happens, all the wins, the losses, all the things that look like some divine plan for my life, it all occurs so I can die like everyone else and remain dead for all of eternity. That’s why I find people who look forward to the future weird. So, you look forward to it all being over forever? “You’re living in the past, man!” So? That’s where life is. When I read books about historical figures, they feel alive again. When I read books by dead authors, there is a feeling of life, that someone once lived who decided to write this thing that a now living person, me, is experiencing.
It’s like reading the old tweets of someone who has died. There is a feeling of life, even if it’s abstract. Math is abstract, but it’s helpful. Is not life also abstract? No, it’s real, you say. But your past is abstract. A mere thought and the evidence of it ever having happened is dwindling. The first place I ever worked, a grocery store, was leveled and disappeared into a parking lot over a decade ago. But when I think of it, it feels like it really happened, even though to you it never happened and never existed because you never experienced it, just like how I never experienced anything that has happened to you.
My favorite pizza place went out of business a decade ago. Actually, the owner retired and no one continued his place of business. In the future, there will never again be an Uncle Sal’s pizza to eat. Past me got to eat his pizza many times and experience the pure ecstasy of an expertly made pizza.
Past me got to experience new love and marriage. Future me experiences an aging marriage and subdued love and the possibility of my spouse dying before me. Past me got to enjoy a lot of video games in their prime when their online communities were full and bustling with activity. Future me (well, ever-present me) experiences only the barren emptiness of permanently dead communities, server graveyards now plowed over and turned into something else.
The past will always be predictable. It will always feel better to you because you know what happened. Our brains seem to thrive on this feeling. We want predictability, habit, and the reliability that comes with it. It’s why people would rather be wage slaves than entrepreneurs, because they want a steady paycheck, nothing more. It’s why some of the freed slaves after the American Civil War missed being a slave. Because at least back then their room and board was covered. I bet you people today wouldn’t mind being slaves to the rich if it meant predictable and steady room and board. Three hots and a cot, it’s why people go into the military or prison.
Until your death, every moment will be the good old days. Every second. Your future is secure until your heart stops. Are you facing trouble right now? This is a great time to be alive, isn’t it? Future you lying in the hospital, about to expire, will look back on this moment of hardship and remember it fondly because they know you’ll be fine for at least another X amount of years. Paradoxically, the betterness of the past predicts a good future, until that one moment of ceasing to exist, that is.
