DO PAST EVENTS FORM THE WAY WE SEE THE PRESENT?

When you take a look back over your life does it seem real? I wonder what it has all been about. Sometimes happy,  some sad but mainly there has been a kind of struggle from one phase of life to the next. Nowadays I don't look back very often and generally  it's because I am with people who are doing that game of  'Do you remember when'.
Last evening I was with some people who were talking about politics it got rather heated as you might imagine and my friend said something along the lines of the young not being interested in what is going on in society. They weren't interested in who to vote for or what to take a stand about. I think maybe that is true for a proportion of society but there will always young people who are serious enough to take social policy and redesign it.
Looking back on life all there is are memories, not facts, just an interpretation of the emotional physical upheavals. Memories of course are intangible they are just figments of our imagination but each event has helped form us pushing us on one path or another. Mostly in my life it has been opportunity that I have grabbed at like a lifeboat bobbing towards me when I have been sinking or looking for a new island in life. Then there have been turmoils like death and illness with those close to me that has instantly halted  then jerked me forward into another direction albeit one I had never envisaged. I suppose each emotional and physical event has brought me to be the person I am today.

In retrospect when young I didn't think about the future or society as a whole not until something hit me in the face.  However as an older woman I am far more socially aware, far more conscious of another's life or situation. I think maybe I find life far too distressing especially  when out in the world, children's crying disturbs me, dogs in cars distress me especially when the weather is warm. Older people struggling along on little zimmer frames pushing their way through a selfish society and unseen or unnoticed in their daily struggles to get by.

Yesterday I wanted to tell a mother of two that she should not prop feed her baby in the pram whilst wandering the shops , I wanted to point out that her toddlers eyes needing to be shielded from the sun but I didn't. There have been days when I have wanted to speak to  parents who seemed oblivious to a child's need for a drink and clothes that needed to be loosened as he lay screaming in his trolley.  I watched another parent eat a large ice-cream whilst a toddler with longing stared on. How selfish we have become, how careless and yet no one seems to notice what is happening or do they?