Why wait until the future to feel warmly nostalgic about the present? That’s the message of “These Are Days,” a 1992 song by 10,000 Maniacs on their aptly titled album, Our Time in Eden. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The past is history, the future is a mystery, the present is a gift.” (Was that pun intentional? It’s a good one!) There are many reasons to privilege the present with our focal attention – this is certainly not a new idea. However, amidst all the acute uncertainty characterizing life these days, it seems like a good idea to revisit.
When uncertainty dominates, cognition is jumbled or paralyzed; we cannot think things through the way we normally do. This is an impairment we can rarely afford. Anxiety emerges as feelings of helplessness and vulnerability move forward into the spotlight of consciousness. We’re more aware of the impossibility of exerting careful control over our circumstances – not that we ever truly had much power to do so, but we maintain the illusion more easily when we don’t feel handicapped by crisis and disorientation. Certainty itself is also illusory. How often do things actually unfold the way we predict? I’d say the most expectable outcome in most situations is something other than whatever we expect; exceptions are the rule. Nevertheless, we naturally make predictions and plan accordingly. This is what our brains are designed to do, and it’s usually best to operate this way, even if we must modify our plans in response to unforeseen developments. Flexibility and spontaneity have tremendous value, but some structure is necessary for success in the vast majority of our pursuits. It would be unwise to forego planning just because we recognize adjustments will be required. We can bemoan the difficulty of making plans amidst uncertainty, but the truth is we always make them that way, whether we realize it or not.
When we can’t muster even the illusion of control and certainty, we come face-to-face with actual omnipresent threats, but ones which typically remain outside conscious consideration: ever-possible disasters related to our physical and economic well-being, disruptions in our connections to important others in our lives, and the potential for encountering failures and limitations amidst our own strivings. These are like the germs constantly covering and inhabiting our bodies. They’re most often well-managed automatically by our immune system without any deliberate effort or awareness on our part, but they lay in wait for a moment of weakness, seizing the opportunity to flourish and wreak havoc whenever our defenses are down.
My point is the main thing undergoing change isn’t actually our existential prospects, but rather our perspective on them. Yes, our circumstances can be genuinely more or less promising, with serious real-life consequences – I don’t mean it’s all “just in our heads.” But many of the worries emerging when we’re anxious were always looming in the shadows. Any one of us could be struck with unanticipated catastrophe on any given day, but we ordinarily don’t spend much of our attention on this fact. We’d be unable to function if we did, as life’s routine demands require the time and energy we’d feel compelled to devote to preparing for untold calamity.
Denial, then, can be both an asset and a liability. We may stick our heads in the sand and end up blindsided by something we could have otherwise seen coming and defended against. In this case, denial was problematic. But we can also employ denial to allow for initiative and enjoyment that would otherwise be spoiled by ultimately needless apprehension. In such situations, denial is helpful. Mark Twain famously observed, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” As non-omniscient humans, we’re stuck speculating about imminent dangers with grossly inadequate information, even in the best of times. We can’t know for sure which worries will end up justified and which won’t. We take our best guesses. Sometimes, we might also choose to ignore risks we actually know are legit, or stay preoccupied with possibilities logic deems extremely remote.
In other words, there’s room for lots of slippage in every direction, and there’s plenty of reason to doubt the veracity of our expectations. Precise accuracy is largely beyond our reach, and we tend to distort what we really can know in the service of our emotionally driven bias du jour. It’s amazing we’re still able to stumble through life without constant and severe collisions. Our brains labor under immense constraints, yet somehow provide adequate navigation for most people most of the time.
Within all this ambiguity, we tend to have a negative prejudice toward the present, imagining the future and the past to be better. This keeps us yearning for the upcoming get-together, advancement or vacation, and makes us sentimental about prior eras instead of enjoying the moment we currently occupy. We imagine today’s anxieties were/will be absent during these alternate timeframes, forgetting other anxieties did/will take their place. Our relative lack of enthusiasm about today is largely a function of our need to keep an eye on immediate threats. It’s generally more crucial for our survival to avoid injury than to claim or relax into joy. If we forget where the honey is, we can look for it tomorrow. If we forget where the bear lives, there may not be a tomorrow. However, it’s also true we might spend our (dubiously longer) life in perpetual misery if we can’t stop thinking about the bear. We need to know where the bear does not live and is unlikely to make an appearance. We need space to breathe, rest and reset. This isn’t a luxury, it’s a psychological necessity.
The application of this to motorcycling is obvious, as the pleasures of saddle time can be eclipsed by fears of falling or being hit. Of course, while riding, some vigilance is always necessary, but if it completely destroys the fun, then what’s the point? Caution can be a lifesaver, but when taken to an extreme it can also rob us of what makes life worth saving. Constant dread is exhausting, too, and many people eventually flee to the opposite extreme – some version of obliviousness, throwing long-overextended caution to the wind in the process (the baby with the bathwater). So how can we give ourselves the vital breaks we need? Must we pretend our problems don’t exist or ignore potential dangers? Wouldn’t doing so invite even worse outcomes?
All this philosophizing sprang from a peculiar observation I recently made while pumping gas one beautiful spring morning on my way to work. As I stood there waiting, tense about the unexpected extra commute time (I’d forgotten I needed fuel) and worried I’d be late to the office, I imagined I was heading out of town on some adventure. I don’t know whence came this fleeting escapist whim, but it was quite impactful. The brilliant blue sky and light, cool breeze instantly changed character. In fact, all of the sensual features of the landscape and environment shifted. They went from emotionally flat information to emotionally uplifting inspiration. The difference was striking, even as I was fully aware every detail remained objectively the same as it had been the moment before. I was merely viewing them in an altered context, as though I could savor them as part of something fun and exciting, rather than sullenly noting them as elements of the day my obligations would prevent me from enjoying. Clearly, I wasn’t actually prevented from enjoying them, even though my exposure was short-lived. I took advantage of the opportunity to savor what I could while I had the chance.
This little trick stuck in my mind and I’ve repeated it frequently. It’s like forcibly crossing my eyes and seeing double, except the resulting perception isn’t a distortion, but is just as valid – maybe more valid – than what I’d perceive without applying such effort. This isn’t denial. It’s inclusion. I’m reminding myself of a reality I’d ignored or devalued, alongside whatever aspect had occupied centerstage. In response to gorgeous weather, I could easily fret about forfeiting a day of outdoor bliss and shuffle through past memories and future hopes in search of analogous moments to prefer. Ironically, indulging in such fantasies precludes the very real pleasure available to me right then and there. Letting myself soak up the beauty surrounding me while the gas pump ticked away the seconds also meant feeling its loss more acutely when the handle’s abrupt CLACK! signaled my time was up, but this felt better than the alternative. There are people who never take vacations so they don’t have to endure the arduous re-entry process of returning to their jobs. I guess this is a matter of personal preference, but I’m skeptical about the strategy of avoiding pain by simply eliminating pleasure. “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.,” wrote Alfred Tennyson. Should I ignore a wondrous spring morning just because the pleasure will be fleeting? Should I not go for a ride just because I know it will end?
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I’m reminded of many a motorcycle outing or garage project in which I became angry, scared or discouraged about some frustration or disappointment necessitating an abrupt change in plans or lots of additional effort. Oftentimes, in the middle of those tribulations, I wished I could be magically transported elsewhere, a different time wherein I’d be relieved of my suffering. Yet later, when calmly looking back on those same experiences, I’ve felt quite differently. I might be proud of how I handled the challenge or feel a fondness for the exhilaration which only takes hold when things go wrong. And there have been plenty of times when something which ostensibly went “wrong” led to something wonderful which would have never happened otherwise. So, when I actually inhabit the wished-for time of relief from my suffering, the suffering seems unjustified in retrospect. I want to go back and tell the distraught me to just hang in there, it’ll all look much better soon; in fact, I might as well go ahead and start feeling relieved NOW. When I get to the point in time I’m wishing for, I may well want to be back in this one!
This is much the same sort of trick I accidentally performed at the gas station, viewing the present through the lens of a different time or context. There are legitimately good things going on around us constantly, but we selectively ignore them or construe them negatively until some later moment of nostalgic reflection. It’s all dependent upon which elements occupy the foreground and which we relegate to the background. Maybe we can take in the whole picture and tell ourselves with a chuckle, “This will make a great story one day!”
When at some point in the future we wistfully say, “Those were the days…” we’ll be referring to the present. Might we view today that way sooner rather than later? I don’t mean to discount authentic tragedies or suggest we just put a positive spin on everything; I’m a fan of soberly assessing reality and I realize not every cloud has a silver lining. But being sober doesn’t necessarily mean being somber. That delightful spring morning at the gas station was every bit as real as the fact I’d only get to enjoy it briefly. I might have missed it entirely. Something is more than nothing, even when it’s not everything.
Have a nice day!
Mark Barnes is a clinical psychologist and motojournalist. To read more of his writings, check out his book Why We Ride: A Psychologist Explains the Motorcyclist’s Mind and the Love Affair Between Rider, Bike and Road, currently available in paperback through Amazon and other retailers.
