Looking Back

It has been a year since my last post . Wow, that long huh? So I decided to disturb the inertia, hoping to keep going until an outside force (like a nasty negative comment) puts me to rest again.

Two things gave me the push. The first was a book which title unfortunately, I can’t read because it’s in Japanese (I apologize to the Japanese for my being illiterate in their language, despite having been in their country for almost two years). Showing you the book cover however, will give you more than words.

The second push I got from our fellow blogger Jagcon’s latest post, ‘It’s indeed a small world.’ It amazed me what new technology can do for us. It can actually open a window to our past, which happens to be the topic for my post - looking back.

Let me get back to the first stimulus, the Japanese book. When I saw the cover, it reminded me of an earlier post I made in this site, 'Spontaneity and Responsibility in the Arts.’ The cover picture and my pictures all showed Japanese children drawing on street pavement with chalk. There are differences of course, the greatest of which is that the cover photograph was taken in 1959 by Takeyoshi Tanuma, and my snapshots done in 2006 - a span of 47 years. That length of time is enough perhaps, to consider this form of street art a tradition. A bucket of half consumed Crayola Sidewalk Chalk left on top of our mailbox by neighborhood kids also indicates that the practice is institutionalized. It might be interesting to do an analysis of what children drew then and now, and why, but really….

Now on to Jagcon’s post. It’s really mind-boggling how a picture of a child selling cigarettes on a street corner on a hot summer at midday, would lead to long lost friends finding each other and then prompt a whole batch of former kids to look back to their past. Man, it was just a picture, which, though forcibly, leads to my point. Try stirring up the past and you’ll find the sauce thick with memories and feelings, triumph and defeat, opportunities and regrets, inspiration and fear. In our rapidly changing world, everyone put so much emphasis on the new and the future, that it takes no effort to ignore the past.

But really, you HAVE to look back. Why? Because you have nothing to show of your life in the future yet; all of what you have − is in the past. So you had a sad childhood? Study it carefully so you can spare your children from the same. Too many mistakes committed? Now you have a chance to second-guess. Had a happy, privileged life? Stop gloating, you’re making all of us feel cursed.

Of course, I could have just told you that in the beginning and saved you the time and effort (or agony) of having to read through this piece. But where’s the fun in that, at least for me? Besides, that’s the point of our blogging right? To set up a record of our past which when accessed by others, make it a part of theirs as well.