Time, as it flows, wears down and destroys that which is temporal. Accordingly, there is more eternity in the past than in the present. The value of history, properly understood, is analogous to that of remembrance in Proust. The past presents us with something which is at the same time real and better than ourselves, something which can draw us upward, a thing the future never does.1
Why is it that memories are so golden, or occasionally so black? When I think back to my childhood, despite the horrors of disillusionment from the Great War, I find a certain glowing quality of life which is lacking nowadays. Even the Second World War now has an aura of ‘good times’. Of course I can rationalise: I can remind myself of the bad conditions, of my own uncertainty and immaturity, and realise that in no real sense can the past be considered to be any better than the present. But when I desist, this confusion of facts melts away and once more the past is gently golden, Which is the lie? Do rose-coloured spectacles really distort the vision? What many people forget is the fact that rose tinted glass does not superimpose a colour which does not exist in a scene, but rather it filters out all other elements. So from a rosy point of view it presents what is arguably a clearer picture. As far as we are here concerned, there is no lie. The theory being suggested is that the process of memory does not so much distort events, but rather stores them in the form of purer essence — after all, whisky keeps better than beer…what is being suggested is that the greater glory, sense of purpose and beauty that we see in past events is not a lie superimposed by our corrupt brains, but the revelation of elements which were really there and are in fact obscured by the complications of the present…let us then seek to improve ourselves by cultivating the ability to witness the magic of the present as it happens, and not merely when it has become the distant past. What better way to withstand the seductions of nostalgia?2
Time, as it flows, distills and reveals. Myth and legend are truer than history and memory, for the universe is made of stories, not atoms.
Simone Weil
Ramsey Dukes
Beautiful. May I ask what the headline is in reference to?