Editor’s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers’ questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at [email protected].
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Dear James,
I rarely ever think about past events unless explicitly reminded, and I wonder if I’m missing out on some core human experience. It’s not that I can’t or won’t reminisce; I have a pretty good memory, and I’m happy to relive old scenes when my partner or family prompt me. I don’t dwell much on past failures and embarrassments, but I’m also not living entirely in the present—indeed, I tend to obsessively worry about the future. So what am I missing? Should I be making an effort to look backwards more often?
Dear Reader,
I want some of what you’re on.
Me, I’m a nurser of ancient grievances. I believe in forgiveness, but then again—do I? If you pushed me around in 1982, ripped me off in 1997, failed to be sufficiently fascinated by me in 2013, I haven’t forgotten, and vengeance will be mine. Not to mention the grievances against myself: For them I get revenge every day, and rather painfully too.
Oh, to leave the past behind! To dump it, toss it overboard, and tread blithely as a lamb into the eternal welcome of the present moment! But I dunno, something in the wiring (mine, anyway) won’t allow it. Is it evolutionary? Are we meant to drag all our mistakes around with us—plus the bruises to our nature, plus the dilapidated hulk of our crappy memories—so as to avoid them next time? As Kingsley Amis wrote to a friend after his second divorce: “Well, it’s all experience, though it’s a pity there had to be so much of it.”
So what’s my advice? Only this: If you find yourself able to stay clear of the shadow of what’s already happened, I’d say that’s something of a superpower. You might consider using it out there in the world, this mutant gift of yours. Use it for good. Seek out people who offended you, or who worry they may have wronged you at some point, and tell them it doesn’t matter. Seek out anybody—why not?—who’s guilty or ashamed or bogged down with regret, and tell them they’re free.
Hauling my deluxe, personalized baggage,
James
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