Raise the Hammer

If you want to write engaging articles I'd suggest getting to the hook sooner. Maybe delete the first three paragraphs of this article -- or try moving them to the end as footnotes?

I've found it difficult to talk about the past with most people. Even when I look at my own tendencies I can see that I have a strong negative bias against my own past. I'm always criticizing myself and looking for ways to improve. This is a perfectly natural tendency, sure, but I also think that I'm threatened by the idea that things could have been better at another point in my life.

Whenever I find myself thinking that a past experience was better than my experience right now I fixate on it. How can I reclaim the feelings I felt back then? I try to think of strategies for how to bring this circumstances back into my life -- or I try to convince myself that they weren't as awesome as I remember them. And I use the same strategies when I'm thinking about possible future experiences.

These habits usually have the desired effect. After I finally manage to convince myself that I'm on the right path (or I exhaust myself in this process) I'm finally able to allow myself to return to the present moment and relax.

However, after looking back over a lot of similar experiences I realize now that I've spent much more time trying to convince myself to live in the present moment than I've spent living in the present moment. So, in the end, my efforts toward the goal have gotten in the way of the goal itself.

So, sure, I can talk about how violent and terrible the past was. And I can talk about how the people who lived then died young. But all of this talking really just ends up getting in the way of doing/changing/creating/being.

In the end though, I agree with you. We are living in a golden age. Not because it's better than all the other ages. But because it's happening right now.

There are worse things in this life than poverty, starvation, violence and death.