It occurred to me this morning that I’m becoming invisible. As wave after wave of new generations enter the scene from stage left, I’m increasingly the fool on the hill - recounting past adventures, and rolling my eyes at the surrounding cacophony.
It got me thinking - about Midnight in Paris, and the book it’s based upon - and the all too common human condition to chase the way things once were.
Ernest Hemingway famously lived several lives, and perhaps crucially for us, wrote personal journals throughout his adventures. In his later years he re-discovered a collection of old notebooks - long thought lost - which became the basis for “A Moveable Feast” - the book upon which Midnight in Paris is based.
The interesting thing to me - is that Hemingway didn’t recount the stories about the Paris of his youth until his autumn years. In a strange sort of way, his narration of the world inhabited by his younger self, the Fitzgeralds, and the upcoming artists who would change the world is no different than Gil Pender’s yearning for a time long past, or anybody else’s.
I sometimes go back and read my own past journal entries, and wonder how much my views have changed - about the world, and about my place in it. It’s difficult to say.
I think it’s dangerous to look back too much. It seems all too easy to make unfair comparisons - cherry-picking the best of the past against the worst of the present - and of course it’s all subjective.
While the past has shaped who I am, it’s not who I am.