our memories in that way, with our minds as the projector, to see where and who we were? What value is such a pastime? Of course, to those with less in front than behind, this is almost all many are left with.
Of course, it is important that we travel back slowly to the beginning, through those winding roads of our lives. This is how and where we make sense of ourselves… This is how we measure where we are, by where we have been, who we are by who we have been. It’s not then purely with meaningless and weepy nostalgia that we examine our past. To remain alive, while we are alive, and to pass on something of value, something that our collective experience has given us as a polished truth, a thing that has withstood the pressures of time and therefore, has crystallized like a jewel…..something of value..
Each of us has some unique set of lessons, different from all others. None has ever walked exactly the same footsteps of those who have gone before. Just as, of the billions of previous lives, none have shared the same DNA and none have had same fingerprints. Our souls and minds are then unique among all men. Each of us can share something that only we can know and that only we can understand…. We have all seen things that no other has. For example, the special sight of an icy mountainside just at the instant the suns rays turn it to diamonds’ or the curious knowing smile of a newborn, seeming to understand what they cannot possibly.
There are more neurons in the human mind that stars in all the universes. This means that our minds are truly remarkable and, in fact, have infinite potential. As humans with this stunning gift, we are then bound by our creator to develop to our greatest capability that which we each possess. We must, and indeed should, reach a considered understanding of what we have learned, experienced and accomplished as we rushed through our early and middle years. By closely examining that which only we can, we will find those special nodes wherein lie that most precious of intellectual gold – truth!
Like paintings on a cave wall depicting men and animals in two-dimensional primitive poses with red imprints of the hand of the artist, we all can take brush in hand leaving our marks in stone for all to find, to wonder over and finally to learn from. This then is our human duty and this is our best reason for existence, at least for all of us who have something to say…
You reasonably ask, what can I contribute, what do I have to say and why should I bother? I say this to you, look deeply into your memories, examine your knowledge and seek out those kernels of truth that you know perfectly well to be unchanging verities. There is no doubt whatsoever that your yesterdays left a unique residue of knowledge and understanding that can, and needs be, passed on. Man climbs always on the collective knowledge of his predecessors. Indeed, there is no other way to advance and advance we must!
The ladder of knowledge we have before us began at the beginning of time and time is not an endless commodity. Every fact in science, mathematics, medicine and, in every school of intellectual endeavor, was and is firmly grounded on the steps immediately below. Each generation contributes as we climb taller and see further….understanding more and more of everything….
I said that time is not infinite- let me explain that. As the entirety of the universe is concerned, time may indeed be endless but, for earth and our solar system, this is most certainly not the case. Our sun will most certainly die and our earth will and is changing. If we stop advancing, the end of humanity, and all life as we know it, is then assured- it’s simply a question of when not if!
For man to continue it’s imperative that, sooner rather than later, we migrate and populate other solar systems. The ladder of knowledge we have built, and are building, then is one that we, each and every one of us, can and must contribute to. For us to abandon our quest for the stars in favor of feeding empty and limited minds is beyond foolish- it’s suicidal and immoral and an insult to our creator!
You can argue that you’re but a simple soul and have no special knowledge to contribute. I argue that you are wrong. Your life is and was remarkable and no one has had before you the special and unique set of circumstances as have you. You have seen things that no one else has; you have understood and understand things that no one else ever has... Open your mind to a gentle inquiry and examine carefully who and what you are. Like panning for gold, as you slowly wash away the silt of years, glimmers of the purest and most valuable bits of truth will remain.
All of us need what you have learned. Millions wander through life in a kind of daze unseeing and unfeeling, waiting for that kind hand to steady them against the brutal winds of life. What you can give to others then may well be that special word, that special understanding that will suddenly free them from their mental prison, illuminating the way out… Imagine, how many minds can be saved, how many lives given purpose and imagine what a plethora of thought can emerge.
Each of us, those who have our yesterdays, have the ability to change the world by changing even one life. A single individual, like Galileo, Leonardo, Beethoven, Einstein and the thousands of others who have so greatly influenced the advancement of humanity were, at one time or another, exposed to the inherited knowledge of his teachers and his teachers teachers. Without this special ‘kick-start,’ many of them may have languished in relative obscurity.
What is it that most distinguishes each of us from another. We all are born looking surprisingly alike- similar bodies and similar likes and dislikes, for example, we all prefer to be warm instead of cold, we all wear clothing, we like to and need to eat and we are, mostly all, thinking beings. The single most interesting characteristic distinguishing us are those unique set of experiences as we travel through the years of our lives. Just as no two of us share fingerprints or DNA, no two are imprinted by life in the same way. We can of course, pass down our genetic characteristics to our children…about this we have no choice. However, in choosing to cull through our lives and pass on those special truths that only we know, in this we do have to make a conscious choice.
When I set out to write Yesterday, I had these thoughts in mind and hoped that I would be able to motivate you to do the same. What parts of your long life can you and would you think of sufficient value to create a written, recorded or visual record such that you can influence and add to man’s collective knowledge and understanding.
For example, one of the memories that I would want others to know concerns the lessons of hunting, trapping and fishing, all of which have meaning for me. Imagine a cold and misty morning back in the 50’s, a time before computers and in the days of black and white TV. I’m out of my warm bed before first light and quietly dress. I leave my home in sweaters, a heavy coat, gloves and tall rubber hip boots with layers of wool socks.
I have an empty wet burlap sack slung over my shoulder and a short strong billy club that I made by cutting a baseball bat in half. It has a hole drilled in the end with a length of rawhide as a strap. I head down the hill behind the one room schoolhouse and into a muddy wet swamp where the reeds reach higher than I can see. I follow narrow game trails where the grass and reeds have been bent and broken- ice has formed in the many puddles. I stop at the places where I have set my forty traps. There are small fury animals caught in the cruel steel jaws - some still struggling to escape with their paws broken and clearly in pain.
I quickly kill them with a single blow to the head from the club and, opening the traps, dump their inert cooling bodies into the burlap sack. I reset the traps and move on to the next. As the sun is rising, after perhaps two hours, I leave the swamp and head up across the baseball field to the old two-room school. It’s about 0800, I enter the still quiet building. I’m the early one and have to shovel some coal in the basement to warm the building. Remember, this is 1953 and coal was very much still in use.
The cold basement is a dark and scary place. Some say it’s haunted by a kid who many years ago hung himself there. Some laughingly call him the “school spirit.” Not me! My Mom, who went to the same school many years before,
