There are no “good old days” to go back to.
Ever.
I’ll make this light-hearted, since I feel a lot of my followers have a bit of a resistance to this topic. No need to worry, I relate. I have a resistance to a lot of topics myself (ask any teacher that dealt with me). The moment they start comparing magic to Quantum Physics I’m like “whoa whoa whoa, hold on there. I do not consent to this. What was the safe word again?”
“Mindful manifestation reprogramming retreat. There ya go, I said the safe word”.
So, that’s good, we’re all resistant to modern wisdom, we wanna go back to the good old days, we’re on the same boat here. In fact, this realisation I’m sharing with you here came to me against my will. Kind of like my oracle job, I do it against my will, which is why when people envy my path, I raise an eyebrow. “Ah sure, you don’t really”, I say, but they insist they do. *Eyeroll* That’s when I always say, “my dear sir, I know better than to fall for the same lie once again”. No, really, people are very flaky these days… Pretty sure if I asked a crowd “who wants to be the oracle?”, everyone be like “me! pick me! I do”. “And who wants to lose friends because you said what they don’t wanna hear?” — radio silence. But I just asked “who wants to be the oracle” twice. Why do you guys always change your minds the second time? See? There’s the flaky attitude once again. Just make up your minds already! Feck sake.
Anyway, a similar phenomenon happens with the romantics who keep saying we should go back to the good old days.
What is it you’re saying? They become MAGA idiots? Haha, yes, that’s part of it. But not all of them do that! Oh, no no. There are decent people who wanna go back to the good old days too. Respectable, civilised people. People who would never dream of supporting fascism or anything bad! They just bring back the good old days the right way, ya know?
Let’s not discuss neonazis, that’s so over, so 2021. Let’s talk about the good guys.
For example, the people reconstructing paganism who aren’t in the alt-right. They’re good guys. They believe in progress, equal rights, affirmative action, all of that good stuff- they’re simply saying that some of the things we allowed to die out should be revived, like the worship of gods that existed before Christianity took over. What’s wrong with that? I mean, the Christian burned people at the stake for not believing in their new all-powerful god. Now we have the chance to make things right by our oppressed pagan ancestors! Now we can bring back the good old days when nobody fell for this Christian bullshit, embraced local gods, went to war against each other all the time because my god is better than your god… No, wait.
Ah sure look, it’s just war. It’s not burning at the stake — Ohhhhh, I see, alright, carry on there. *sips tea*
*shouting away from the audience* don’t worry Diarmuid, false alarm, that noise is cause they’re just warring outside. Yeah yeah, shooting, beheading each other. Nothing to see here. A normal Tuesday.
I don’t live with a Diarmuid. But if I did, 10/10 would shout that.
Ya know, the problem with using rage as a motivator for reviving literally anything from the past is… you tend to romanticise the best case scenario too much. There’s always a bit of a frenzy that comes with rage, and this frenzy prevents critical thinking. You’re like “go, go, go”, and act before thinking. You forget to consider all the nuance and the factors that led us to where we are today, in exchange for getting delulu that our current circumstances were just the result of random chance and can be changed at the flip of a finger.
Well, technically, they CAN be changed at the flip of a finger. People do that all the time. It comes at the cost of common sense, but who even has common sense today anyway? Why do we think it’s “common”? Maybe it used to be common, but like all things, the passing of time took it away from us!
See, modernity is the problem. The solution is to bring back the good old days when the air was purer, people were happier, and distractions were non-existent. Ya know, it’s a common line of thought. “Everyone is self-centered today. We only look at our phones, ignore each other in real time, we lost our sense of community”. Yep, very true. In fact, this is so true that even the Victorian would agree. I know they do, I talk to dead people. But they didn’t have smartphones, so they blamed books.
The Medieval would agree too, but they couldn’t read, so they blamed musical instruments.
The Ancient would agree, and most of them couldn’t afford to even go see a bard playing music; so they blamed the hearth. (That’s probably why Hestia came and said “hey! That’s MY dwelling place. Stop complaining of alienation through comfort” — actually she probably didn’t say that, but the lack of myths gives us poetic license).
I mean, come on. At this point, why not go ahead and admit you’re just afraid of the future?
The past only looks idyllic because it already happened. There’s something deeply comforting about knowing the exact outcome of a period of time that has already gone by. It’s like watching The Devil Wears Prada for the zillionth time, pointing and saying, “oh look, this is when Miranda will make a sarcastic comment about florals in spring”. And you already know what happens in the next scene, and the next, and the next, all leading up to The End. No surprises to give you anxiety, no risk of investing 2 hours of your life on a new story that you might end up disliking… No, this is the same old movie that has now become a staple of comfort movie night. All is safe, all is good, you can enjoy your microwave popcorn now.
Some people pretend that they’re only pining for the good old days because “fashion was prettier and higher quality”, or because “people had more time to rest and didn’t hustle as much as we do today”. These excuses sound good, but… Look, I’m an oracle. I’m not gonna pretend I don’t know the truth you guys are concealing with these excuses. If you were GENUINELY interested in something as simple as a bygone way of life, you’d just join the cottagecore movement, and that’s it, you’d be happy. But no. You don’t do that… Because you’re not being fully honest there. There’s nothing specific about the past that inspires you. You’re just, I will repeat, afraid of the future. The uncertain. The unknown.
Boo.
I bring you information about the future. That’s why I have so many enemies. People get especially mad at me for not telling the “full story”. Amusing… You want the “full story” about what hasn’t happened yet? What are you, my dear? A fucking NPC?
Yeah, I know, it’s difficult to live your life. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not like rewatching your comfort movie for the gazillionth time. Alas… The alternative is death. Sorry, you can’t always be passive and have “mammy” handle things on your behalf. (Even if this “mammy” is mother nature). Deal with it.
Let’s 👏 grow 👏 up.
And then maybe, just maybe, when you see me “reviving things from the past” (like… *gestures vaguely* this oracle over here), your instant conclusion won’t be that I’m bringing back the good old days.
Instead, you’ll see the truth: you’ll see that I’m harnessing wisdom from the past, but I’m actually living in the “now”. And the now, in fact, is all we have.
