A Taste of the Past
There
is something I have experienced many times similar to deja vu but not
deja vu. Deja vu for me, is like a more specific positioning, like a
carbon copy vision, a narrower but more accurate sense of being in
that point before, if articulated, “I remember/sense being in this
place and moment before.” However, there is something else...like
a taste of the past, caused by sensory triggers or a combination of
them...like the wind on the skin, perhaps the lighting, the
weather, an aroma....I am not talking of a resemblance, not speaking about a
similarity and recalling of attributes. It is more potent, like your
experience is sensing a feeling, a taste of twenty years ago or
something...you can not touch it but its scent is being left on your
soul, your mind, your emotions, psychology...its the atmosphere and
experience, like a small version of time travel. It can trigger the
desire to want to escape backwards, seek refuge in the past from the
present. Our bodies are like time machines at the end of the day, we
move through time and are mentally projected backwards and forwards.
I
wonder if any of you know what I am talking about, it is difficult to
put into words. The atmosphere is different in each decade. The
culture changes slightly each decade. Societies, communities, nations
and even families are not stagnant. If we could transport ourselves
back fifteen or twenty years into the mindset that we held back then
(if you were old enough or even even existed), how different would
our psychology, emotions and thinking be? Would we recognize ourself
in our own body? Would we remember who we have been before? Even our
beliefs may change over time, major beliefs and lesser details. Our
beliefs drive our thinking, which in turn drive our objectives and
actions. So twenty years ago we may have been walking left but if we
had the benefit of hindsight or the benefit of our time-transformed
personalities we would walk to the right, i.e. in the opposite
direction. What if we could transport our self of today back twenty
years to be surrounded by the past but without changing our current
views at all. How alienated would we feel and with who would we
associate. I know personally, that the 'me' of today would not have
made so many decisions in the past and I would not have made so many
associations and relationships. I do have regrets for lost time and
opportunities before I had been shaped to make wiser and more
knowledgeable decisions. But things have past, the road of time has
been built as it is and there is nothing to be gained by wishing for
a change that can't happen. And a lesson is usually deeper ingrained
by experience rather than theory. However, this does not mean we can
not try to project backwards to learn lessons and project forwards in
anticipation of the way things work.
I
strayed from my opening point in the previous paragraph, my issue was
that there are many elements to how we feel at any given moment
e.g.:-
The
weather
The
lighting
Our
physical comfort or discomfort
Our
beliefs
Our
thoughts
Our
emotions
Our
objectives
Our
relationships
Our
sense of place
Our
presence or absence of purpose
The
progress along a defined path
The
clarity or cloudiness of perception
Our
awareness of environment
Political
circumstances
The
collective culture in society
Our
mental stability or instability
Happiness
or sadness
The
memory of our past actions
The
memory of past events
The
configuration of these elements and their various intensities may
well have a role in the unexplained probable uniqueness of feeling
that can almost appear to occur twice, yet their complexity and
uniqueness would point to that being impossible. This would lead us
to believe the feeling is metaphysical or supernatural. I am reminded
of the Quranic words:-
“They
ask thee concerning the soul.
Say: 'The soul (cometh) by command of
my Lord:
of
knowledge it is only a little
that is communicated to you.'"
(QURA'N al Israa' 17:85)
We
could try to remember and feel the past moments in order to detect
the conditions which caused a particular sense or state. This too
though, would expectedly be a futile exercise. The specific sensation
or taste of experience we feel repeated is very subtle and
mysterious. It's elements are probably not detectable or knowable, as
these are matters of thought, consciousness and experience all of
which are beyond human understanding. Cause and effect is a reality
and mechanisms in history repeat themselves but our understanding of
ourselves and reality is limited today as it was yesterday.
We
want to have a second bite of something but we don't know what we
were biting and neither do we know where we were when were biting it.
We remember the feeling but we can't describe the feeling. We have
felt something before but we don't know what or when.
Some
people feel frustrated that they can not share their memories with
others but this is similar to how our unique perception can't be
shared with others who are present nor with those who are absent in
space but not in time. Worse is the mental torture of not being able
to reach backwards. Regret can be a painful thing, but if we were
wiped of memory we would lose our identity, direction and
personality. Our past can tell us where we are going to just as it tells
us where we are coming from.
Memory
is an amazing thing and a deceptive thing. Sometimes we are so sure
of how things were in the past but then the evidence is uncovered to
disprove our memory. But have you ever been so sure of your memory or
witnessing of details that you feel history and the universe have
somehow been changed for you alone, in order to teach that things are
not as you think, even when you know? I have been so sure on some
occasions that I am almost totally convinced this does happen. Or was
I remembering on behalf of my double in a parallel universe? Or was
it mixed up with a dream? Well in some cases, definitely not, as
their was no history or sleep intervening. But that doesn't leave me
free of thought implants does it? Or how about perception implants?
That is, intervention in our perception of the current reality so
that we see what is not there and don't see what is there? This
latter case I know for sure happens.
Why
should I, should we, want to recover the feeling of the past? Is that
we know things are getting worse and want to turn back the clock? Is
it a form of escapism from our current problems, or the current state of the world?
Abu
Hurayra (a companion) reported that the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant
him peace, said:-
"The
Hour (of Judgement Day) will not come until a man passes by the grave of
another and
says, 'If only I were in his place.'
"
(MALIK Muwatta Kitab al Janaai'z)
Is it the desire to
see the road that we failed to take earlier which caused us to reach
our current dead end? Or is it an attempt to slam on the brakes as we
rush too fast towards our graves? I feel partly that it is the
deluded dream of an unobtainable refuge, because while hiding in
space we can be found but its a great deal harder to find that which
is hiding in the past.
“To
Us are known those of you who hasten forward
and
those who lag behind.” (QURA'N al Hijr 15:24)
