History, no history and playing the road

For a long long time, time had no past and no future, no depth as such. The present seemed to extend. Life was same or similar for generations on end. Perhaps before tribes discovered each other, formed nations and a notion of history began. Before that every new day, every new generation perhaps lived similar to the one before. Whatever happened before, myths, legends, history they all belonged to some notion of time before, which was not very different from the time present. Or perhaps they had history, but it was very local. Perhaps a little depth is depth enough to differentiate future from past.

But last few thousand years, and more and more last couple of millennia, and more so last few hundred years, the future has been utterly new, it is easy to see direction, the generation before does not live like the generation next. Things move too rapidly. In such a scenario, what value does a custom hold? A custom, close to visceral perhaps but lasting centuries had or even has a value – but when things change this rapid, custom is like a fish grown in placid waters caught in rapids. Does the way it has been nurtured still hold it in good stead? Or does it improvise and deal with the world it finds itself in, is beyond imagination different from generations before. Good sense says that it is more and more critical to have presence of mind, to have a personal regard of a few lofty values, and then to create the moment anew – to play the road as the road itself seems to twist and curve beyond the straight road of no past, no future difference. That would be practical, and that too given good sense would perhaps lead to aesthetically superior solutions than holding on to non-alive bags and baggage of yesteryears. To keep in the toolkit, the best from the past, the most practical, heroic, courageous and all Nichomachean virtues, but then to have more presence of mind than ever before needed. Perhaps that is what the species needs to get attuned to – more mindfulness. One has to create one’s own path, meet the new reality at one’s own terms. Sometimes all the wisdom of the world has not dealt with what one is supposed to deal with. What keeps one in good stead then, is the same old mindful presence, a few lofty poetic thoughts on existence, and meeting reality thus, as one sees best fit.

(Tangent from Bernard Williams - Essays and Reviews -Why Philosophy Needs History. Yet to read the essay. Aspiration.)