An Ontological Mediation

It will never again be like it was.

Eight small words seldom have as much power as these. This is the soul of memory; melancholy to those who are saddened, and nostalgia to those who are gladdened by remembrance. Most of us live between these two extremes, by turns reveling in, running from, and chasing after the past.

It will never again be like it was.

This is a reminder to visit (but not dwell in) the past. Attempts to “make it like it was” inevitably meet with either failure or disengagement from reality. In truth, though, most of us relive the past every day – the rituals of our lives serve as touchstones to sanity, precisely because they are the same every day. The same coffee in the same cup, the same drive to work, the same haircut, the same conversations. The past revisited, over and over and over again, eases the psychological trauma that each day is a new reality of our own creation, born in isolation of its predecessors and the subtly different realities of other souls around us.

It will never again be like it was.

For some, the mortality inherent in this phrase is overwhelming, and they choose to focus on the dead past, rather than the living present. Others seek solace in the future, placing their happiness in possibility, rather than experience. Still others live in the present, rejecting all care of the future and all thought of the past: better to experience than to worry or regret. These are seductive ideas of simplification, but the joy of life cannot exist without pain. To seek to eliminate pain by erasing the joy of the past or avoiding the consequences of the future is a life of nihilism – to ignore both is a true annihilation.
An overlooked approach is to integrate the whole. Live in the present, but with mindful appreciation that the present is the future becoming the past. The past is not irretrievable – its reflection is seen in the future. The future is not beyond experience; its outline is written in the past. The present is not independent, but rather defined by the past and directed by the future.

It will never again be like it was…

is not a statement of despair, regret, or relief. It is a statement of fact – an admonition to live in reality, not memory or possibility. It is a touchstone to appreciating life in all its fleeting glory. It urges one to take up the liberating yoke of opportunity in and responsibility for finding satisfaction.

It will never again be like it was… so enjoy every minute.