The Circle ofL ife and the Twin Arcs of the Past and the Present

                                     The Circle ofL ife and the Twin Arcs of the Past and the Present

I came across two quotes in the last couple of days that struck a chord with the thoughts that had been swirling in my mind for the last few weeks.  The first one is by James Maxwell Coetzee who wrote: “A historical understanding is understanding of the past as a shaping force upon the present “  and the second one is by Aatish Taseer by way of explaining Coetzee’s remark: ”History should inspire a sense of wonder for the past; they should rouse the imagination. The pamphleteer intellectual of the present ruling party does the opposite. He turns the present into a ‘shaping force’ upon the past. “

Today at 75+, I stand at the crossroad of transition from the past that I know well to the present that is distinctly different to the future that is yet to unfold. Talking about the past that we all know fairly well is often criticized as being nostalgic, having a wistful or sentimental longing for the past. It is also at times viewed as an act of cowardice for not being able to endure the much changed present and thereof escaping into the past. William Faulkner defines nostalgia “as a denial of the painful present.” The adjective ‘painful’’ is not a condemnation of all things present, but an acknowledgement of the distress that one experiences in not being able to shape the present in the light of the past. No one can ever wish for life’s movement in perpetuity without a change nor is it a possibility. Change is -what we know- the one unchanging factor in life. It is change that divides the present from the past and has perforce to be accepted. Therefore being nostalgic is not being escapist or cowardly, but to see things in perspective.  "It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present" (Fabian Linden).

The critical question is similar to the egg and the chicken question. Not in terms of what comes first, but in a metaphorical sense of whether the past shapes the present or the present shapes the past. To put it in a different way, can the present come without the past or whether the past can exist without the present? If the present does not exist, how can there be a past? If there is no looking back, the past ceases to be an entity. Therefore it is axiomatic -before we start discussing the question about the past and the present with regard to shaping each other- to understand that past and present cannot exist without each other. The past is embedded in our memory and that never gets erased. The present is inhered in the past and gets its identity through making changes in the inherited past. Ezra Pound coined the slogan “Make it New” by way of rejecting the ideology of realism of the past by a new mode of thinking. This effectively translated into new art forms, new music, new theatre,  new literature, new philosophy  by revising, rewriting and reformulating  the older thoughts , ideas and works of art and literature. George Steiner writes that “ the modernist movement which dominated art, music, letters during the first half of the century was, at critical points, a strategy of conservation, of custodianship.” It involved recognizing the source and transforming it into a new idiom while keeping the salient aspects of the original intact. Talking about Picasso, Steiner said that his art was “revision, a seeing again of the classical art forms in the light of technical and cultural shifts.... The new, even at its most scandalous, has been set against an informing background and framework of tradition. “

What is happening now in India?  This is best answered by the quote from Aatish Taseer.WEeare harking back to our past only eulogize our ancestors’ genius in genetic engineering, aeronautical discoveries, surgery and mathematical propositions and formulae. All these are expounded not on any scientific proof but on citation from our mythologies and legends. ‘Mythological’ means “ based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity”. These stories exemplify the inventivenses and creativeness of the human mind in conjuring up a sense of wonder. They use hyperbole, personification of natural phenomena and fantasy to rouse our imagination. They are often allegorical implying moral and behavioural models for the listeners and readers. To look at myths as expounding factual historical events is to turn the imaginary discourse into rational truths that are founded upon modern scientific and technological discoveries.

    The past is the founding stone of the present. We build the present on the strength of the foundation that we have inherited. If that foundation lacks logic and credibility, the present defence of an inherited glory crumbles. The past should not be understood in the light of the present while the present lends itself for measuring the force of the past on all its visible, rational and practical aspects. To read Shakespeare and criticize him  for being anti-feminine, anti-jew etc is to judge him from the standpoint of or modern values. Shakespeare is to be imaginatively read as the chronicler of the Elizabethan period.

    Imagine standing on the seashore with the waves rising high and beating against the land bordering on the sea. The giant waves that are visible recede and merge into the sea and are no more seen. We feel the tingling sensation of the waves touching our feet and as they lose height and withdraw, they leave behind the residue of excitement, pleasure and stimulation that we store for the present and the future. The past, like the waves comes and goes and the reality of experiencing the past is the foundation on which the present is laid. We cannot forever hold fast to the waves, nor can we forever hold to the past. The waves are a part of the sea but the sea is not a part of the waves. The past is a part of life, but life is not a part of the past. The past merges with life to emerge as the present. Let us learn to look at the past not with fanciful eyes but with realistic eyes and turn it into the shaping force of the present. Browning in  Abt Vogler says: “On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.” The past and the present are the broken arcs and enclosing them in a prefect round is life.