We like to look at our current condition with both fear and awe, and at any given moment, we are either terrified at the coming dawn or inspired by it. We hold our past in a kind of glorified nostalgia tempered with distain: where our origins were both more pure and simple, but also darker and more primitive. It is a tension that we are generally unable to maintain simultaneously; and so we choose to either vilify or exalt whatever helps us in our current position.
When we recognize our trajectory as characterized by reckless speed and abandon, we cannot help but see the past as a comforting home that we’ve all but abandoned. We certainly had it better then.
When we recognize the inadequacies of our current context, we cannot but hope for the champion of the future to come and make our problems go away.
*as part of an assignment/educational experiment, I am blogging my way through the required reading for one of my courses this quarter. If you wish to read all the posts that I write for this class click on the label TC 500, below. I will also be tweeting some thoughts as well. Check them out at @nickybarger, they're labeled with #tc500
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