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Why is the past important?

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Curiosity and Central

The USA is orientated towards the future, and the perfect example of this is Curiosity, the exploratory vehicle now trundling across Mars.

And it is literacy and ideology that has shot Curiosity all the way to the dry plains of Mars.

Literacy explodes us out to colonise the world, and we are now following the same explosive trajectory to Mars.

Meanwhile, back at home, explosion has run its course and we are starting to inplode inwards under the tutelage of the electronic media.

And while Curiosity is the perfect example of explosion, Central is the perfect example of implosion, as we implode into one another across the globe, and as we implode into our own psyches.

And so while Curiosity explores Mars, we explore our own psyches on Central.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Telos and Ritual

What is the future of the past?

The future of the past will be the eternal return, quite like the past in Hinduism.

So what is the past of the past?

The past of the past is teleological, where the past, the present and the future are linked in a line, like the line on a page.

The past of the past has a direction; the past of the past has a beginning, a middle and and end, quite like a book.

The past of the past has an eschatology, an end of history, like the Book of Revelations in the Bible.

But the future of the past will have no end, but be endlessly repeating. The future of the past will be liturgical, a sacred past, which we keep alive in ritual.
 
G

Ginkgo

Guest
The past is an illusion. That's why it's important. Some attempt to recreate it, but only if their agenda depends on "past"-present relevancy will doing so succeed. I believe that the study of history is a viable way of understanding the hearts and minds of men of the present. On an individual level, we tend to carry our emotional baggage around with us because we have yet to sort through why it's still weighing on us in time. Nobody is exempt, and reflecting on the past to console oneself for the sake of the past, or to generate conjectures into a dream-world is no more useful than naval gazing.
 

Crafter

New member
Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
32
MBTI Type
ISTP
The past reminds me how to be better in the future.
The future is now.
The now is how I live.
 
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