What is the past?

by B. Janszen | May 9, 2021 | What is the past?

“As I sat and thought about this question, I realized increasingly how unsure I was about my view. As I then turned to the all-knowing ‘Google,’ I realized that very few others had shed light on it either… Ironic, considering how much time we all spend dwelling in the ‘past’, that we would not have a clear theory on what the past actually is.

I think most people’s conception of past is that it somehow is moving backwards from the present. Alan Watts, however, introduced the metaphor of a ship and its wake – asserting that the past trailed off from the moment, but not quite as it may appear. The wake of a ship travels outwards and forwards, even while appearing to travel backwards. Perhaps this optical illusion is true of the past too – it is not a linear notion. When we remember ‘the past’, we do so through the lens of our own minds – in this moment – and subject to our own memories that have piled upon whatever the event ‘was’. This is pretty heady stuff, but makes sense if you really study your experience of ‘remembering a past event’. Thus, perhaps my theory is that the boat of awareness cuts through the ocean of universal consciousness, creating ripples and waves that trail outwards and forwards. That is what creates the choppy-ness of our memories – the turbulent waters caused by the ship’s wake.

Overall, the clearest understanding of the past comes when the turbulent waters begin to settle. Through mindfulness, meditation, quieting of the mind, etc, it becomes clear that the past is an extension of the ‘present’, the only thing there is. It branches off from here, now. If we insist that there is such a thing as ‘the past’, we must begin from the experience itself – here and now – rather than some philosophical babble such as what I’ve presented :).”