As a corollary to my post the other night, I felt the need to comment on just how easy it is for one to concentrate on one’s past.

It’s like comfort food; the Mac n’ Cheese or Taco Bell of the emotional psyche.  It is so much easier to look backward, opine on one’s own mistakes, regrets, could have beens, and all of that sort.  It’s easy because there’s jack shit you can do about it, but you can pat yourself on the back for finally having figured out that You Were Wrong, or The Thing You Could Have Done That Would Have Made Things Better, or The Reason You Were An Asshole (See, It Wasn’t Really Your Fault! mix).

These mental labyrinths are quite a fun distraction, but ultimately they mean neither jack nor shit.  It’s one thing to be self-aware and to self-examine, but if one does nothing with that moving forward, it’s nothing but self-indulgent masturbation (much like, one could argue, this blog entry is).  It’s the reason we like to listen to songs from our past and relive The Good Old Days (which usually weren’t really that good).  Yes, there is a value there, but if you spend too much time you are just avoiding reality by wrapping yourself into the gauzy folds of recollection.

It all comes down to moving forward, doesn’t it?  All the opinions in the world about one’s own past are meaningless because the past is just that — past.  The best that can be gleaned is the lessons of non-indulgent reflection, and then use those lessons learned moving forward.

And there’s the rub.  Moving forward is hard.  Moving forward is difficult.  And moving forward with self-awareness and insight… well that’s just a motherfucking responsibility.

I suppose this is why so many of us in this modern generation of Post-X-But-Generation-Y-Seems-Like-Made-Up-Bullshit find ourselves in such a bind in our thirties.  We gorge in our twenties — on experience, life, sex, love — searching for meaning and purpose, and then we get to the next decade and realize that that purpose thing we were searching for, is something we need to make  for ourselves.

A lot of us have gotten jumpstarts lately.  This guy gave a lot of us an opportunity to make something, and that movement that we created is now turning into this movement.  Pretty exciting stuff.  It felt great.  But the lesson there, of course, isn’t that some guy did this cool thing.  The lesson here is that we — individuals all across the world — became engaged and did this cool thing.  And that owning your own destiny can feel pretty damn good.

Which brings me to my long-winded final point; the basic concept that moving forward, as difficult as budging that inertia-bound rock from zero may be, is the only real way to feel contentment.  At least that’s been my experience.  Trapping yourself in looking backward is a direct route to misery.

I have a friend who has been doing this lately; he and I have forged a strong friendship over mutually doing this, in fact.  But lately, it’s been rubbing me the wrong way.  Like most people, I am excellent at seeing my own foibles in others, and of course when others do them it makes me morally outraged.

And that’s the lesson for me.  Yes, a quick glance in the rearview mirror is good.  It will let you know whether this turn, or that lane change, is a good idea.

But if you just stare in it too long, you’ll never see what’s coming at you.