Just as a youth of today finds relevance in the Baul Samrat Shah Abdul Karim ‘s Before Ki Sunder Din Kattaitam song, so many old people find their sentiments in it. I swear, even if the kids of today can’t quite relate to all the lyrics, when they grow up, they will find relevance to these words from their golden past.
The fact that the past was more beautiful than the present is not only in this song, many poets and artists over the ages have tried to show it through their creations. Whether you talk about Shah Abdul Karim’s songs or Pink Floyd’s High Hopes, this nostalgia for the past is more or less noticeable in all people. On the one hand, like Shah Abdul Kareem, thinking of Gazi’s song in the monsoons, he is saddened by the memory of joy, on the other hand, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour is sad, thinking of the green grass of the past, the lights that were greener, brighter than the present. This is a universal human understanding, which has existed for ages and will continue in the future.
Do you know that many eras have passed? Many artists have died? A lot of golden rice has fallen, don’t you know? – Jivanananda Das
When sitting with family, friends, discussions often seem to drift towards the past. We often enjoy discussing the memorable days of the past. Some of their stories may be sad or happy, but still the earlier days always hold a special place in our minds. So the ‘golden days’ apply only to the past, be it future or present.
An example can be drawn, while in high school, perhaps thinking back to childhood, the days of primary school were simpler, more beautiful. I thought those childhood memories were fun. At that time, the various thoughts of high school seemed difficult, the previous ones were easy. Again, college seemed like high school was so much easier, those days were so much fun. And this cycle of retreat continues throughout our lives.
In this way, no matter how many steps we pass in the world, in the workplace, the previous memories are always felt to be easy and happy. However, when I was going through those times in life, it seemed like I had never gone through a tougher time than that time. At all stages of life, the past rather than the present seemed more golden. Everything was easy and beautiful in the past.
But why is the past better than the present? Is there any psychological reason behind it? A study by Tory Higgins and Charles Stangor in a 1988 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggested one possibility behind this phenomenon. For example, when people say that a concert is great, they mean that it is better than all the other concerts they have seen up to that point.
Tori Higgins and Charles Stangor argue that when people think about past events, they only remember the evaluation of that event, but not the reason for that evaluation. That is, they only remember whether the event was good or bad for them. For example, when someone thinks about a concert they attended in high school, they remember that they thought the concert was great, but forget that their judgment was based on all the concerts they had seen up until high school. If they see the same concert as an adult, when they have more experience, they may not think the concert is so great.
That is why, earlier any Eid, Puja, New Year or any festival seemed wonderful to us, it was wonderful compared to all other festivals celebrated till that age. As a result, due to our lack of experience, we overestimated the festivals, and we only remembered that evaluation.
When we look back on past events in our lives, we can remember many things as wonderful, or wonderful, or brilliant. Just forget how we decide on the excellence or brilliance of those events. So with a broader base of experience as adults, we need something much better than being genuinely happy, awe-inspiring. So we decide things were better when we were younger.
Another thing is the time difference. Quite a few studies show that we tend to think more abstractly about the distant past, while thinking about the present more clearly and precisely. Many of the events happening at the moment involve feelings of petty irritation, which you must deal with in order to navigate daily life. For example: an exam coming up, paying bills, washing clothes or cleaning the house etc. more everyday things. On the other hand, when you think about the past, these petty annoyances don’t come to mind. All you think about are the wonderful, memorable times you had.
On the other hand, when you look back at past events, you know what the consequences were. According to psychologists, uncertainty in any event creates stress in our mind. Anxiety and worry work when we are uncertain about something, when we don’t know which way the outcome of an event will turn. Worry, anxiety and bad times come a long way when we are aware of the consequences. That’s why the present often seems less pleasant than the past, because we’re constantly worrying about something or the other, whether it’s exam results or a job interview.
When thinking about your past, you look back with a full sense of what’s going to happen next. When you look back on some fun times with friends, or a professional success, and remember those fun times, you know for sure what happened next. But in the present moment, you cannot do that because life is full of uncertainty, discomfort and stress in many cases.
In our lives, we crave certainty. But no one can tell us with 100% confidence what will happen when. But we have to face this uncertainty constantly in the present, which makes the certainty of the past so much more pleasant.
As our experience increases, so does the uniqueness of events to surprise us. In the past when you are young and less experienced, it is common to experience many things for the first time, and that initial experience sets a benchmark for later experiences in your life. First experiences are always unique and unique; Compared to this special feeling, similar experiences later in life also fade away. This in turn creates an expectation in our minds, which prompts us to compare our current experiences with previous experiences.
But does this mean that the present moments are not happy? No, that is not the case at all. The present can also be happier than the past. It just means that you may be comparing the present moment to the past, which may have surprised you a little more than the first time in the past. The past was never as stress-free as it seems in retrospect. On the other hand, the present can often be much better than what you feel in the past.