The Door to the Past

By Robert Ringer

If you’re up to some very deep, often difficult to understand, reading, try tackling Loren Eiseley’s The Immense Journey. Eiseley, born in Nebraska, wrote many brilliant essays and books during his lifetime that deal with the history of civilization and our relationship with the natural world. Published in 1946, The Immense Journey was his first and perhaps best work, bringing him national prominence along with it.

Eiseley’s writing style is deep, poetic, and unique. There is a hidden wisdom in his work that is rare. My favorite line from The Immense Journey is: “The door to the past is a strange door. It swings open and things pass through it, but they pass in one direction only.”

There are many ways to interpret these profound words, but, for my purposes, I use them (perhaps out of context) to remind myself that you can’t go backward in life. The past is the past, and you have only two choices: Move forward or perish.

On rare occasions when I’ve made the mistake of trying to get the door to the past to swing in the other direction, it didn’t work out. No hidden wisdom in that, to be sure. The reason is obvious: The world, like the universe, is in a constant state of change.

The only rational way to live one’s life is to forget about the past and keep opening new doors to the future. Intelligent action is the human tool that gives you the capacity to continually do this. Unlike the door to the past, the door to the future swings open quite easily. And, for the most part, you are always free to walk through it.