MEMO FROM NARA...

All living human beings have a past, present and future. The past starts from their birth and the future ends with their death. The time period for the past and future may be in terms of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds. But the present is very short because as every second is spent, it becomes the past. So present time does not have long period although we add the recent past and the future and make it long. But in reality it is not so. The dead persons have only the past – no present and no future. The age of a person determines his or her past. The future provides an opportunity for the present. We live in the present which is very short in time – fraction of a second! Once we spend that fraction of a second, it becomes the past and we start live in the future which turns into the past in no time. Hence, it is obvious that there is no worth mentioning present. The future merges into the past via the shortest possible present.

We can know what happened in the past – sometimes we call it experience which may be worth remembering. Important events such as successes, marriage, achievements might have happened in the past. At the same time failures, non-performance and illness would have also occurred. So past can be only recapitulated or remembered. Whatever events happened are happened; they cannot be rectified or changed. Only thing one can do is not to repeat some of the mistakes we committed in the past during the future. Therefore past can guide us to improve our activities in the future.

Some people who have a long past – elderly persons who are retired from service – talk about their old glory instead of thinking the vision of the future. In fact, the vision of future is better than the story of the past. Since the progress in every field is so fast and new, nowadays, the past stories do not fit into the present or future. Therefore let us not live in the past; let us live in the present which is a thin line between the past and the future. Our life is converting the infinitely smallest time period of the present into the past. As the clock ticks the present disappears into the past.

The past can be quantified in terms of period whereas the future cannot be quantified. It is infinite. We know what has happened in the past, but we do not know what is going to happen in future although we can predict with some certainty certain things. Since we are unable to determine what is going to happen in future – astrologers – a group of people who predict our future based on the planetary movements and our time and place of birth, forecast our future. Such forecasts are being believed in general by almost everyone to plan for the future. Unpredictable future can be predicted by the actions performed and the activities taken up at the present.

The future comes to a stop when a person meets death although some believe that there is future beyond death. But as such everyone knows for sure that death puts an end to future keeping the past intact. The concept of past – present – future applies to all human beings even though they do not think seriously on these three components of life. Future is changing from the past everyday by human activity which is stimulated by modern science. To keep up with such future we need to learn not from the past but from the future about which we know very little. I hope human beings are becoming more and more intelligent, stronger and enterprising to leave an unforgettable past, an enjoyable present and a pleasant future.