Past always seems golden —

When I was in my youth hood, I often heard elder people’s remembering past life with an emotional touch. Their way of narration carried a notion, as if, by describing those bygone days, they too were floating with the moments of the past life. At that time,  that all felt absurd and untimely. Then it ever felt to me that our current time was opportuned to the existing social system only. I also felt, it was like a nostalgic surge and up to certain extent I was correct.

with the lapse of time, when I completed five decades of life, then the same nostalgic surge I too began to experience in life. Along with the growing age, the past that had slipped off from the hands too begun to look much more golden than the present. It was not the personal experience of mine solely. When ever I happened to discuss with people of my age group about the past, I found them  recalling “bygone” days with a reckoning desperation. It made me conclude, after a lapse of long time, every one becomes prone to recall the bygone days, as if, he was missing something important that can not be compensated.

What reasons it carries behind? Why this surfaces up like a common phenomenon with every aging person? The first most answer to this query is related to “social aspect” of ” generation gap.” The “time”  factor always remains in sneaking mode. It’s a continuous process. Every “rising generation” prefers its present ambiance. They are born and brought up in that ambiance and they imbibe that.  This process of imbibing process is intrinsic and very complex as well and keeps on working subconsciously. It molds a man in accordance to the circumstances and he begins to enjoy that deeply. Till the age of youth hood, man ever remains fraught with fervor and jest. His all the faculties of body work in a rhythm. His mind ever remains engaged in storing all the events and incidences” in its subconscious lobe. This mind does silently.

The additional factor of young hood is a “patronage” provided by parents. From our infancy onward till the time we become sustainable to stand on our feet, we are generally  supported by our parents.This “patronage” if provides even a general ambiance to survive free from any encumbrance, that seems much felicitous. In the childhood, a child enjoys the great pleasure merely on getting a colored balloon or relishing  some sweet-ball or attending a fair with parents.That quantum of pleasure even supersede his those big successes of life which he attains in life in his adulthood.

This is the factor, on becoming “old aged” when we happen to recall the smell of that dopamine (the hormone responsible to generate “feel good and happiness,) that secretion becomes thinner and thinner with the aging process. Just try to remember your early days of school-college life, how you were in a regular habit to make a  fullthroated  laugh. Compare this to your present “old age” scenario! The laughter you enjoyed in a single day of your School life, the same you are unable to make in an entire month now. On the experience of other old people as well as of my personal experience, I can claim, months pass on without a wholeheartedly laugh in this age. It’s not that, we don’t find the situation of “fun and frolic,” of course we do find, but the perception towards the life inhibits that.

This aspect is basically a psychological aspect of life. Our brain is an amazing structure. This structure relays the directions to us, to do or not to do some things. Along with it controls us, but surprisingly, it also directs us to use it (Brain) properly. It sends the “message, keep yourself in bounds! Just imagine, this brain structure does all this. It directs us, controls us and asks us to control itself (brain!) Here it says us to behave like a rational and prudent man. This prudence forces us to assume a sober posture. Another amazing process it does to “detox” itself. This is a very simple process adopted by the brain. To make it self “stress free,” it undergoes in a deletion mode.

In this deletion mode, it either dumps innumerable bitter memories into subconscious part or wipe them off completely. For example, in our infancy, we were badly chided and punished by our parents and teachers. If we were supposed to remember that all intensively, but natural an abhorrence for them we would have fostered in our mind. But it never happened since brain wiped them off in deletion mode. Our mind merely stores and put active those memories which are felicitous to us. No doubt, some major traumatic events remain stored in active mode for a comparatively long period of time. But mind gradually erases and attenuate that misery too. Here, “time is the great healer” maxim applies.

In addition to this, in our prime stage of our life, we are prone to make a social circle. In common, out best friends belong too that period of time. Now, on reaching to the age of the adulthood and onward, often a good majority of them shift to other locations. This dispersion effects us. Secondly, with the passing of time, either a man ameliorates or faces a decline in life. If he declines, then he recalls his “cozy and comforted life” of the past. On the other hand, if a person rises in life from a simple life of the past and now lives a cozy life with all the available amenities, now it makes him realize the “cost” of expenditure for this rise.  In this condition, he is given to recall his “old days” when life was so simple and cost of living was minimal.

In other words, we can define it, a man is prone never to become satisfied. When he is equipped with all amenities of life then he longs to live with minimum needs. When he has nothing in hand in present, then he recalls his all belongings of comfort, he had had in past. But again, the same first most factor of “generation gap,” that been mentioned earlier always plays a vital role otherwise. Every generation gap along with brings many changes. In life style, in equipments, devices and widely in the transformation of thought process.  This transformation of thoughts is more painful since it effects social norms, values, trends and fashion.

as a paradigm, I was born and reared in a conservative ambiance but today’s modernity becomes indigestible to my social and mental set up. I feel trouble in adjusting with it. Now I am inclined to recall my old days when there was no such pressure of modernity. Another factor is of changing natural environment. In the name of development, the vast greenery and natural habitat widely been devastated. This also pinches the older generation.

We should be thankful to the amazing structure of our mind that helps us forget many painful things and helps us to travel into past in our imagination. It sends us into our that past period, that rounds about only about happy and cheerful moments. It works like a natural therapy to us. Every  one is bound to suffer from this stigma of  past life memoirs on attaining the old age. In a nut shell, it’s the story of life, ” what we lost and what we found!” Penned by — Penned by– Vinay Pharasi —–