Time is a continuum of the fathomless past, the fleeting present, and the uncharted future. The present—a transitory spell between the past and the future—is the only tangible time we actually live in. In comparison, the future can just be visualised in our plans, anticipations, and speculations. The past lies buried in memories and records. Viewed from a philosophical perspective, the past has two modules: contemporary and non-contemporary, demarcated by the vantage point of an individual’s birth.
The ‘contemporary’ past is the reverse period beginning from the present time to the moment of our birth. The span of life lived so far by us, in our present avatar, is metaphorically our past life.
The ‘non-contemporary’ past encompasses the infinite period prior to our birth. The boundless past, covering the period before we were born, is as good as extinct for us. Linkage with the ‘non-contemporary past’ is provided by generational connection, history, and mythology.
The generational connection gives us a glimpse of the immediate past prior to our birth. When a baby is born, generally the grandparents are still alive. In sporadic cases, even great-grandparents may be living. Barring isolated cases, we don’t see more than four generations of a lineage alive at the same time. We therefore get to hear from our elders—parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents—first-hand narratives and stories about their times.
The historical and mythological versions of the non-contemporary past, which our ecosystem feeds us from the time of our birth, become embedded in our psyche. Consequently, irrational prejudices and biases take deep roots in our minds.
We dabble in hating the dead people who are perceived to be perpetrators of oppression against our forefathers. Holding grudges against people who have wronged us or our kith and kin in our lifetime is explicable. Is it even tenable to be revengeful against contemporaneous descendants of non-contemporaneous ‘oppressors’ from the distant past?
We should adopt spiritual and philosophical ways of responding to the tales of tyranny and oppression—real or imaginary—committed against our ancestors in the distant, ‘non-contemporary’ past. We should let time heal by not raking up the past.