Monday, May 29, 2006

some navel gazings about time

The other day Hame posted some thoughts about the idea of going back, being younger again and how that seemed like a really stupid idea to him. He and I have had similar conversations before so reading it I found myself nodding away pretty confidently. Being who I am now is great, and while there are a lot of uncertainties right now I wouldn't trade places with any of the earlier versions of myself, it's too much fun getting to be me having learned all the things I have, and I kinda like being a grown-up.

A couple of days later my friend Paul mailed about uploading lots of his old photos to his website, a quick look under 1997 uncovered some ancient shots of me and those, together with the rest of the Aberdeen based ones invoked a powerful feeling of nostalgia in me... I think in spite of myself if some entity had offered there and then to rewind my clock ten years I'd have leapt at the chance.

So, I'm left wondering what that's about - I genuinely do love being the man I am now, the journey is a big part of the point of existence for me and one of the things I get out of bed in the mornings for is to find out where life goes next... I'm facing forwards then, but thinking about it now it's not in order to face away from my past. There's very little back there that I'd choose to leave behind, and on the whole I do a good job of carrying the best bits of my past along with me... Some things inevitably get left behind, some things last only a short time, or belong to a particular age. Maybe that's where that sudden longing for university came from: when I think about my four years in Aberdeen it's all coloured with a particular tint that was left behind there when I graduated. That general sense of place and time is all tied up with what I had to leave there when I moved on - colours and textures of life that now belong to the past, and looking at those old photos I think that's what I missed - not being 19, or a student, or at University or any of the specifics, but that air of what is now the past, the bit I couldn't bring along with me.

Would I want to be younger again then? Hell no. Would I want to be able to visit my past now and then? Definately.

5 comments:

Owen Blacker said...

I know exactly what you mean. Whilst I sure as shit wouldn't want to go through puberty again and only vaguely like the idea of having a more-hedonistic early 20s (the hedonism having been hampered as much by lack of funds and being in a long-term relationship, which I wouldn't give up for the world, as by my anxiety attacks), I'd much rather continue enjoy living my early 30s and progress onwards.

There's very little in the past that I'd change. After all, what's the point in regret; where does it get anyone?

Owen Blacker said...

And why do people still upload photos to websites that aren't Flickr? Nasty JavaScript stuff on Mac.com ;oP

Patrick said...

yup, that lack of regreats thing is where I'm at too, but I was floored momentarily by the nostalgia.

Personally I don't use Flikr for uploads because they want to charge me.

...and don't blame Mac.com for Paul's amateur web design skills, the two are unrelated :p

Hamish MacDonald said...

Awww, ickly NinetiesWeasel!

Image-wise alone, I'd say this is a much better time for you, P.

But that urge to re-do the past knowing what I know now, yeah, that is kind of compelling. Except I foolishly got stuck in an online discussion board scuffle the other day, and wondered if my vastly superior adult intellect and wit really *would* be of any help in my past, like in high school with all the meatheaded hockey team jocks.

I'd probably end up just trying to damage their cars, then going all Columbine on their asses, and never growing up, creating an enormous time-paradox.

I might get laid, though.

Patrick said...

hee!

For someone with as much footage on video of himself as you Hame you're pretty brave with the 90s image comments ;) Just because the tapes are all ßetamax, doesn't mean you're safe.

I think you're right of course: that the best way of flicking back would be to do so with all of one's adult faculties intact, though I also think it'd be incredibly frustrating living as grown-up me with all the necessary restrictions of teenage me's life.

... I wouldn't have thought hockey team jocks were your type though :p