Are we really in a cultural golden age?
excerpt:
Sallust, the Roman historian who made his name by connecting great events to the moral outlook of the people involved in them, said it more than 2,000 years ago: “The golden age is before us, not behind us.” Twenty centuries later, we still don’t seem to have learned his epigrammatic lesson: We—both the critical we and the popular we—spend an inordinate amount of time looking backward and mourning a golden age of culture that is likely irrecoverable, while looking at the present day as either approaching or having already arrived at an utter nadir.
personal commentary:
I've sure been that one guy who thought "things now aren't like they used to be", but then again, I'm still not completely out of that phase. I've just learned to accept it gradually, move on, and approach each day by making the current one I've been afforded slightly better than the ones that have preceded me. It doesn't always work out, but when the ultimate goal is to improve one's self over time, how can that hurt, and who really, can say they failed, save for the ones who didn't try in the first place? The real challenge is to try to impart this simple individualistic philosophy upon others, who do, at times, seem hell-bent to regress to some metaphorical "mean" of their own take on when and where the "golden age" dawned.
Sure, I agree retrospectacles are nice in retriggering those dormant cherished memories, but if looked at too long, they can certainly inhibit personal growth. Then, there's the question of where our futures is headed, and when you over-ananlyze something as fluid and unpredictable as what will happen to me a few minutes from now, a day's length, next week, in the coming year, what will become of the world? - it just gets hectic and chaotic for no good reason.
Heaven gives its glimpses only to those / Not in position to look too close.