How much does the past matter?

Being a perfectionist, I want everything as squared away as possible - bed made, bills paid, teeth brushed - even my past. Well, I wish I could square it away. The blunt truth is, as it is for everyone else on the planet, as interesting as I would like to think my past is - you know, travel, friends, adventures - it is marked by misteps, ackward pauses, and a few tumbles. I've also had plenty of good times, good memories and successes too, thankfully.

The past manifests in different forms and on different levels of course. First, there is our ancestoral past - our hopefully proud heritage. I am descended mostly from German and Irish immigrants with a tiny dash of Dutch, French, English, and Scottish. Pretty much sterotypical anglo-saxon. Literally: my grandfather is a quarter Saxon, being his great-grandfather was from the Harz Mountains in what is known as the state of Saxon-Anhalt in Germany.

My great-grandmother in wedding gown

Inside the context of graduate studies, the ancestoral/historical past is part of what is sometimes called "memory" studies. People are obviously attached to their own social history because it forms part of their personal idenity, it provides safety in its abilty to define oneself. It is useful.

But the past that presents more of a problem for me is that of my personal history. I tend to cling to memories especially the negative ones. It's like a mini Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome except that many of the events or experiences I remember, the one coupled with negative emotions like anger, sadness, embarrassment aren't really that traumatic in their true context. This leads me to believe that clinging to these memories represent more of a need of mine to "clean up" because I love to do so reather than the intrinstic pertinence, big picture speaking, of the memory.

It doesn't help that western culture, and really most cultures, documents its past so throroughly and revisits it so often and with such vigor. Mostly, in the context of the arts (i.e. movies, visual art, literature, theatre, etc...), the past is more than naught an apparatus for framing a more contemporary issue. A good example is the book "Atonement" by Ian McKewen. The book/movie takes place in the 1930s both before and during WW II with the last chapter taken place in the 90s or thereabouts. But the book isn't about WW II. It's about finding redemption, but also poses grand questions about the substance of children, the role of social dictates. In other contexts, the fixation on history present in Western Culture in its social sciences, in journalism, and in the arts, really is a reguritation of events that were pivotal, profoundly meanful, that need to be revisited in order for our collective psyches to deal with what had happened once ago, to prevent it from happening again.

Atonement, wartime scene

But the societal past, or the ancestoral past, perhaps has a different signigicance to individuals than does an individual's own past. I think our personal memories manifest in as many occassions or in as many ways as are fit with our individual characters, i.e, a happy-go-lucky person touches on sad memories very rarely whereas a melancholy person touches on them quite a bit; this is because a melancholy person needs melancholy substance on which to subsist. Sometimes, I recall a bittersweet memory because something I have seen has triggered the memory, and being sensitive, I may remember the emotional context of the memory more acutely. Other times, I think that more negative events in my past have just forged a deeper groove than then more postive ones, but I also recognize that I have a compulsion to tidy every thing up, even my past, and that I am often too hard on myself, even in terms of the past. It's only now, that I've gotten older, do I more clearly recognize that no one is immune from an imperfect past. No one.

Its Me or The Dog: Anarchism versus civilization

The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.- Mikail Bakunin, anarchist

I like to compare things. So I have decided that every week, at least once, I shall contemplate and compare two things: two concepts, issues, places, persons, whatever.This exercise I will call “Its me or the dog.”

Lets start with something serious, a perplexing comparison based on notions that I bounced around my mind from time to time, in part, thanks to Powell M Trusler, hubby extraordinaire. That is, anarchism versus civilization, or nation state society.

Look around you. The world, apparently, is going to hell in a hand basket. The World Wildlife Fund announced recently that wildlife has decreased 27% since 1970. Whatever that means. The icebergs are melting. Gas costs close to $4.00 a gallon. Earthquakes in china, you get the picture. If government is so great, if the collective of nation-states if something desired, if necessary, then how is it that the condition of our planet and everything in it seems to be decaying? Is it the natural consequence of human existence? Are we like the dinosaurs, a mortal experiment destined to fail, and leave in our wake a liberated planet naturally replenished via our demise?


It is possible, that in creating an economic system and collective of nation-states, we have built a macro-structure of society that in all its intended good, simply diverts us from natural design (assuming there is one using evolutionist or creationist theory). In fact, we tend to divorce ourselves from a design that limits population growth and depend on development and existence of artificial substances or use of natural substances in an unnatural way, a design that protects the delicate balance of beings on the planet. It is possible that our society has done as much damage as it has done good.

I am assuming that the flaws inherent in society have a direct correlation to the consequences of human society, its civilizations. I am also assuming that an absence of human society would occlude certain present problems mentioned above. But I say this theoretically. Theoretically, anarchism would most likely mean the development of communes, or communal society, small bands of like people who live together and create micro-societies, the assumption being that a greater government would not exist. It would also mean, that like students in a classroom, some communes would progress more quickly and function more effectively than other. Some communes would have certain collective and inherent talents that others would lack. Inevitably, acute disparities would arise between communes in terms of quality of life, medical care, education, and subsistence (one could argue this already exists in such places as South Africa or Brazil). Those in need would either depend solely on the structure of their own group or on the charity of another (again, not so much different than it is now). But, it is possible that through the omission of macro-societies and the creation of communes or mini-societies, we as human beings might parallel a natural design, a far superior administrator of the planet and all its elements. See Mikhail Bakunin


However, this is all theory. I am a privileged person. I live in a first world country, a civilization/society, in which I am able to sustain myself well, and so far, I am able to take care of all my needs, despite any bumps in the road. I would hesitate to so quickly dismiss my circumstances that were had through such a country and its government. My ancestors fled corrupt systems, imprisoning systems, that prevented them from pursuing life, liberty and happiness. This a good thing despite everyone’s incessant complaining, America, a country of whiners. I rather enjoy paved roads and stop lights and laws regarding personal property and protection from crime. I take for granted the freedom I have had so far in expressing myself, in pursuing my goals, in getting an education. In fact, despite the existence of western civilization all of these centuries, it wasn’t until recently that women were able to have lives outside of marriage and family. They weren’t allowed to own property, to inherit money, go to school, etc… I’m not one to complain. However…well, let me use a reference from those great America icons from Star Trek:

Spock: The needs of the many... outweigh -
Kirk: The needs of the few.
Spock: Or the one.
The Wrath of Khan

The thing is, despite all these privileges that I myself have enjoyed via civilization, isn’t it better that the planet survive despite human beings? Again, assuming civilization has, depite its intented good and its good products, introduced the aforesaid modern problems and crises. Are these socities such a good thing, on the whole? Well, its food for thought. Anarchy or civilization.

Long time no talky

Hi everyone, well more like no one since I am pretty sure no one reads this blog but who cares! Anyway, just today, I am blogging because I want to keep in my heart and mind some peeps and some issues that seem to hang on me today:

I really pray for all the people in Sichuan China who have lost people in the Earthquake or who are still in danger. I can't imagine all the pain and suffering some of those people are going through. I also pray for the people in Myanmar who are struggling to survive.

Primary school students hold a candlelight vigil for the earthquake victims in southwest China.








This might be kinda of random, but I always think about Americans abroad who are in trouble. Like the soldiers in Iraq but also Americans in trouble, like Amanda Knox, who is an Italian jail for murder that she most likely didn't commit. I can't imagine being in that situation. Or Americans in foreign prisons anywhere. Or Lori Berenson who is in prison in Peru. I can't imagine that sort of life.

Anyway, as for myself, I pray I just learn to chill out and take life one day at a time, to count my blessings and be grateful for what I have, my wonderful family, and my friends, my health, and the fact that I've never gone hungry, not a day in my life, and that I have always had good medical care. :)H

Here a link for info about Lori Berenson. She may well be a terrorist for the Shining Path but the point is, no due process:

Free Lori