The Past!

There's that great line, from that great film "Magnolia." 

"We might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

It's ain't through with us, because we are the past. The past is alive in us. Everything we are today, is an accumulation of the past. Everything counts. All those days and nights, all those thoughts, and decisions, choices. Everything adds up. What we are today is just the latest snapshot, the latest result of our past. So "The Now" is actually just the "up to date" past. And "The Future" is the past projected forward.

Thinking of it like that, there is no escape from the past. Because the past in all it's glory is all we have, and all we are. That's not to say that the future can't be different from the past, of course it can and will be different. But really the future is just the past that hasn't happened yet.