All which cannot be, is not

     Yes, I hate the past.
     Leave it for the optimist to speak idly of times when and where things happened, as if today was somehow irrelevant. I live enchanted, yet unfazed by the truths that covet to marginalize so many by the attritions we encounter in our daily movements in a chosen direction. These are the condemnations left to us by decades of experience. Having moved in nomadic fashion first, slowly gaining skills to remain efficiently in one place, build it up, and live, until presently we are content with our current status. It's the present. Leaves no room for the past, unless one has a desire for all things nomad.
     The sane contemplation of any subject via the coping spectacles we have devised as our own does in no way measure to what true reality is. Only because the color blind person does not see the green or red lights on a street light is not enough not to let them drive; anyone can go when the masses go and stop in the opposite. Therefore, our inability to see their colorblindedness due to their learned ability does not make them any less impaired. We have chosen a way in which to view the situation and from there it will be difficult to change our perspective.
      As such the mores of society are impaired as well by formed believes that trickle down the precept of the populace where they arise and later come to be shared and replicated through generations. There is a lapse where individuals, suffering a type of recidivism, attempt to usurp the common law or taboos and later revert to their known sanctity-of-being due to the hardships of new environments. This leads to a preponderance of self and culture. But, what about those that succeed and emancipate the thinking of the past and form a new criteria by which to evolve in an evolving environment? Do we not judge them? Why do we result to this? In a village in Mongolia, should we judge, or form harsh deductions of a youth in a family of Shamanists for becoming a Muslim? Hard to fathom such a jump from a very nature-based belief, secular, to one with such ordained structure.
      At that point the loss of customs slowly begins to decay. The assimilation of new things based on new beliefs, environments, people, etc., is or seems inevitable in order to at very least cope with the change. The family of this person, perhaps chosen from the newly chosen group will now begin to perpetuate the newly chosen belief ending one path, the Shamanist, to continue on the Muslim one. A family custome of praying at the required times is begun, doing the necessary yearly rituals, and etc. No advise is any longer sought from the Shaman as to any future endeavors and the replacement of the past is complete.
      Please, do not dare contemplate by mere emotion the loss of customs because humans dare to strive by embracing the things around them in order to exist with comfort in their environment. There is a certain level of absurdity in the thought that in order to be successful one must follow a certain criteria. The hand of individuality where genes are concerned, environment, and choice -per individual preference- vastly influence the direction in which any person will move. We do not solely act because it has been predetermined, but also because of the amount of influential factors that through no coordinated effort come together to entice us to action. Where culture is concerned, choice and further inability to promulgate passed down rituals, beliefs, or other forms of routine-like elements can be further infringed upon by education.
     Learning about your past from the tribe guru around a campfire on a cold night must have been  very influential. The unforgettable tales of warriors hiding, climbing iced cliffs and being blown by nature's breath under below zero temperatures during their climbs to hunt snow leopards.... Fascinating really. The culture expressed to help the young understand the dangers to be faced, the things to do in those situations,  and so much more. All useless to the family no longer living a nomadic life that takes them near high mountain ranges or starvation. Passing down the tales may last a small time, but tales of new games, internet blogs, advances in robotics, neurological technologies, and other subjects will soon fill the table for conversation leaving little if any room for... stories. Is that so wrong? To live in the now?
     Shame abhors the hearts of some who realize that their culture is slowly being tarnished by the infamy of the present; especially when the present is so unique to those living in it, when they have chosen to stay out. What happened to the days when they too were a part and complained that the older adults were so old in thought and could not bring themselves to their level, or to understand them? Why have they forgotten this very important part of the story? If any story should be remembered is that one, how much we strove to be where we are, the treatment given to us, and how we wished it differed. Then we could act on it today. But I hate the past, I derive no meaning from the previous two statements other than they too are obsolete.
     The newly Muslim Mongol goes to the car dealership and asks the attendant, where do you keep the new Camel models? Probably not the best way to get around. It is not best because when you can get around on a train, bus, or car the camel really just impedes progress of all other methods of transportation, and your speedy travel to and from your destination. Some of the mental dystrophia that most of us carry is a sense of resiliency towards the wrong thing. Say for instance that you have a set of foods you are accustomed to eating and because you are in a different country and the food you prefer is not available you decide not to eat. That is what we do with culture. We tell ourselves that it is the one thing we have that makes us who we are, or that is something that only belongs to us, or something other convincing fallacy that perpetuates the dream of living in the past.
     If you can imagine the past as carrying around any type of baggage on your back, you may be in for some ache. Backaches, heel sores, and other related symptoms come to mind after carrying any one thing over a significant distance or period of time. Imagine you were carrying a bag without knowing the contents, as it usually happens with culture. Usually we don't explore the depths of the culture we claim to be hours, the beginning, middle, and end, the concepts, beliefs, practices, we only seem to know a tidbit here and there that someone told us. Even so, we convince ourselves that tidbit is the most important part of who we are. Imagine you carried that bag of intrigue and vague knowledge your whole life and then gave it to your children for them to carry and do the same. At any one moment the correct thing to do would be to open the bag and peek into it at the very least. What makes less sense is the perpetuation of culture or any other idea(l) just because someone told you, even after you have become of age and have the know-how to investigate the validity of the claim posed upon you.
     Individuality, as expressed earlier, takes precedence when decision making allows the individual to either accept that a next step is necessary to move forward, or that no movement is necessary. To think only of oneself when attempting to rationalize the presence we as individuals impart on the world or others before committing to an action appears brutally ignorant. The presence of any one thing influences or vagrantly diverts attention from a goal and it is then constituted as a part of that individual's posterity. This must be clearly understood in order to better ascertain the nature of movement in culture from a past that may have lost value and relevance, to new etiquettes that if adopted can maximize the elements of any whole through individual gratification.
     When an elitist in any group of society sets out to prove the relevance of their societal power which may be losing strength due to its ancient views, dogma, and practice of ideals in an ever-evolving and advancing present, we meet the irony that is ignorance. There is no better water in a sea, for all water is alike; especially when you hate the sea. In other words, in a world where humanity is a microcosm and all that is different is unknown to the individual parts, the representation of the whole should be that we are in fact a whole, a people, and beyond that it can be explained through individuality. The segregation of groups, naming conventions for individual preferences, and other means of divide only provide a platform for hate to be bred and further professed amongst others. As shown, due to the particular desires of an individual's need being separate from the whole, and the whole not being immediately humoured by those, they can change. The ideal of difference, the unilateral significance of self can be explained briefly as a position which because it harbors the necessity to prove something, show something, keep something, retain something, and what's worse, record something for later observation it cannot be good. The selfish act that amounted to the record of the ideal(l) now recorded will later serve as the pivotal stand from whence others will learn. Furthermore, the self, one cannot be doctor, electrician, plumber, architect, manufacturer, driver, supplier, etc., we have a potential reliance on the whole because we are Humanity not Lone-anity. How are we to advance much further without looking, studying, and understanding the things we have here now if we pay them no mind because we're so busy with yesterday's things?
     The question of who we are cannot be answered solely by the experiment that our ancestors begun with us giving us baggage to carry through generations. Surely it wasn't baggage, it protected us in an age where we only had one another. Yes it spoke of dangers in times when we had to rely on ourselves for trials of adulthood. I agree that it helped foster respect for elders and position, but at the loss of fostering self awareness, self worth, and other attributes. It is understood that to control the populace, prevent rebellion, and etc., a leader will mold a message in order to better serve the whole, and that is understood. Again, bringing us back full circle to those values and cultural beliefs being obsolete and irrelevant in the current world stance.
     The present, not affected by the past, or is it? A past filled with hate, desire, impartiality, passion, violence, and the inability to adjust not the moral standards of behavior, but the views on what new standards ought to be is too chaotic to preserve substance. The ambiguity in how values can be interpreted gives way to changing elements that transform something that used to be one way into something entirely different. Think of it as if it were a memory, the more you access it, the more it changes. It doesn't change because you want it to change, not necessarily, it changes because of all the circumstances surrounding the event in which the memory was accessed. Were you upset, happy, alone, hungry, etc., and when those sensations and feelings interact with those of the memory, they become a part of it. Next time when you attempt to retrieve the memory again, it'll be more easy to access because it has more data attached to it, and possibly that data has changed it. The same happens with cultural values. The events that foster the perpetuation of the festivals are mild enough. There are people involved, and committees, and other elements of the government. For instance, your culture may call for that dance to be performed naked or under the influence of the smoke from a plant that has now been deemed a drug, but we cannot have naked people dancing around town square breathing drugs. Generationally, the more people see it, the more that disappears, and becomes the new norm.
     Moving right along to the irony that bring us here, the past meeting the present. There is no time. It is all relevant in that we can speak of it, but irrelevant in that one cannot be present without the other, and furthermore that the illusion of a future is simply best served without either. We attempt, rudely very often, to cling to things we wish were our own, although our own things seldom can help us in any meaningful way. The past is not a good teacher because it is lost, gone, and often forgotten, not to mention obsolete. Usually the only people remembering it is you. Letting go, is not simple. Reality always finds a place where it no longer matters, because it doesn't. It is over. What was relevant, no longer is. We have moved on. Nothing lasts eternally.
          Think not of past things you yearn for the benefit they brought upon your life for they no longer compare to what through experience can bring you the same joy today. We grow, we learn, we understand, and with that understanding we decide that living life is simpler and much savvier than we at any one point. Life does not exist, life is you, you do not exist, you are dead, you are dead because we are born to die, and we are born to die because all which was is, all that is can no longer be, and all which cannot be, is not.