Overdosing Past: A better Way Forward

Everyone has a past. Filled with good and bad memories. Some love to recall the first some others the second. For those who love the second, there is an inner conflict in their heart. A paradox we can say. On other hand they love to trapped in their past because they afraid of losing identity they hold for so long. And the other side of them long to be rescued badly from the shadow of the past. This feeling of contradiction is the thing that make bad memories often difficult to be forgotten. If we are not dealing with this issue, we will find ourselves "overdosing past." What does it mean overdosing past? To understand this, let me recall a similar terminology uttered by Nietzsche. He mentioned how people can suffer from historical overdose, becoming prisoners of the past they create. 

Nobody can erase their past. Yet the other fact is this, not everyone are overdosing their own past, and therefore everyone could free from the slippery edge of it. Augustine, one of the great Saint of the past famously even says there is no saint without a past. In his magnum opus, Confession, he begins his writing with laments. He acknowledged how he had disobeyed his parents. He also engage in unhealthy affair in earlier age. At 16 he consumed with lust. He wrote how he was ready to "take my fill of hell" to do the pleasure of something that was not allowed. Interestingly today, only few people know his past rather than his lovely works. Knowing this, our jaw can just drop. How come this great saint had a very bad past? Well, everyone did. Including the giant of faith. What matter most is not whether we had a bad past. Yet how we deal with the past. Augustine did not just stay as he were. He did Although he did struggle, he proof that there is a way of escape from overdosing past. 

By definition, past is past. The past no longer exits in absolute sense. The reason that past exists is because our mind have memory that could store and recall it anytime. The past still haunt and hence, what frequently happened is that "past is not even a past" as William Faulker wrote in the past. Psychologist also describes on how bad things are easier to be remembered. that's just how our brain was wired. No conclusive reason for this event yet. Some argued it was wired from the constant struggle in evolutionary process. Some argued it was wired since the tragedy of the fall of humanity, whereby evil come into scene and covering human life overtly. The other also argued the reason why our brain is better for bad memories was coming as the result of the bad things itself, causing Hysteria and Traumatic Experience that stay for long. Many long for the true conquest. And for me personally, one of the helpful way is to deal with our past with an equal manner. Whenever our brain start to play one-sided historicity that is negative asked ourselves, is this all? Are they another light from my past to counter the negativity? This is a good habit to developed in life. Perhaps we need fives good things to balance a bad experiences. Why fives? Because once again, our brain memorized bad things longer. 

A better way forward to free from the shadow and overdosing past is to interpret our past in a different way. Does it mean we need to change the story and ignore the bad things that is so evident? Reinterpret past is not by twisting the story and start to do rationalizations or to deny our past but by giving another thick layers and filter to it through a meaning that comes from above. We let another story intersects with our past. That is to say the story of the cross. Our past is not all about our tragedy and our misery since all of those things are dim, in the light of the immense suffering of Christ at the cross. The focal point of history is not my past but suffering Christ. He understand and shared my story and even, he took the entire stories of humanity that was even worst than mine and tasted all the worst terror human could ever think of. That is why the cross is so precious. That is why the cross is so captivating. There are Two main things that Christ accomplished at the Cross. First, at the Cross, Christ deal with our sin. Second, He substitute his perfect life to our life, past, present and future. He give us His righteousness, that is why our life have a new meaning in Him. Our past is never the meaning of our existence. Thus, when we start to recall the cross, its quite difficult for us to recall the bad past and be too overwhelmed by it because somehow, the cross has it ways to block the negativity of my past. The shadow of the cross is bigger than the shadow of my past. With this truth, I can move on and forward and flee from overdosing past. Cross shows that everything happened for a good reason. Thus, our past no matter how hellish was absorbed and redeemed and become tame. Moreover, even all our bad experiences in the past can now help us to understand cross better and deeper more than dragging us down.

In her book, Trauma and Grace, Serene Jones made a wonderful attempt to explain how the cross reinterpret the shadow of her past completely. She mentioned also in history of Christianity countless  theologian, saints and Christian returned always to the cross and make sense in the way it does not make sense in life to which past must be included. Yet, how can the horrific imaginary of Cross bring healing to our wounded life? No easy answer nonetheless, that's what happened in reality. Through Christ death, there is redemption. That is why cross is one of the greatest mystery and paradox in Christian faith. Truly, the story of the cross is not like any story we can find in novel or human imagination but originated in divine imagination. The author of Trauma and Grace herself wrote on how in her midlife she struggled a lot and depressed in life. She lost her friends, broken marriage, miscarriage, long illness. The shadow is too dark. She finally lost her faith and start to looking for another wisdom from psychoanalysis. But not quite helpful. Eventually she found the way through what cross evokes. Cross is the moment whereby the story of sin-grace narratives become amplified greatly. To conclude this, one wise saying says, "The way forward is never straight, and there is no going back. Having lived in the land of the bizarre, all one can do is step forward into future where that bizarre world continues to hunt you, but perhaps in the new way". This is precisely what Cross accomplished. To deal with our tendency of overdosing past. Cross, is a new way forward. A better way forward!