The Pnebleu Blog

Hindsight is 20/20, yet it gets blurry real fast. We don’t look at the mistakes from the past, very often, before we make them again in the present. Sometimes we look back at the past and wonder why we felt the way we did. You forget your own perception from the past. This isn’t confined to people as individuals, it can be expanded to include countries and even the human race in general. Life happens in cycles. We may develop new technologies and have different details, but people do the same things over and over. There are wars for land and resources. There are cycles of civic and social growth, which are followed by decadence, the Roman Empire for example. People are born, grow up and learn, find love, procreate, grow old, and finally die. Then, the next generation does the same thing over again. There is nothing more cyclical. If we want to break the cycle in some places and improve our existence, it requires looking a the past, learning from other’s mistakes and doing things differently in the future. But, you still have to teach the next generation or they will “forget” and the cycle begins again.

Breaking from the circle of life, to use a cliché, is not always a positive thing. The break from traditional nuclear families during the last half of the 20th century has had some negative consequences on the children of non-traditional families. The rise in youth violence, youth depression and other mental illness, and lowering education scores may have something to do with the new family structures that are increasingly in use. Just because this is the most advanced time in human history and we are able to do things people a few decades ago couldn’t even imagine if they wanted to, doesn’t mean we know everything and should try to change the nature cycle. We may just inadvertently wreck havoc on basic human existence. We should be careful when we change tradition, look at all of the consequences. If you look to the past for the future, you may just find it; we’re doing the same things people did before us.

First, I just want to apologize for not posting since December 2006. What happened to January and February? I’m trying to post more meaningful and serious topics on this blog and use my Vox blog for silly, immaterial stuff. Now into the reason I’m writing this.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve looked back and seen how stupid or immature I’ve been in the past. There is nothing I can do now to make up for those things, obviously. You never know how you are going to feel about your current behavior in the future. Opportunities to do things or not do things when we’re younger will always be looked back at in 20/20 hindsight. I look back at some of the decisions I made and wish that I knew then what I do now. It’s the same for everyone, it is part of the human condition.

I’m about to turn 20. I have my whole life in front of me, and yet I’m already looking back at the past. Why is that? Is it because there are so many unknowns in the next few years of my future? Such as what I’m going to take next semester when I’m a junior (I’m going to be a junior in college, when did that happen?!?!) or who am I going to marry and what will our life be like. Because I can not see into the future, I look back to the past. Is this a normal thing to do?

As I get older, am I only going to look back and see a lack of wisdom?