It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

-Anotole Broyard

One will find himself in moments in which he yearns for another time, a time that may be a path he has already passed or a point that is but a few paces ahead.

In both "what was once" and "what might be", one has a compromised vision of sorts, seeing what he wants to see, and feeling what he wants to feel, in a pursuit that seemingly enough filters out the undesirable of those times. I have wondered why the green under my feet never seems to be green enough compared to the trodden path behind me and the beckoning distance before me.

Built within our perceptions, there exists a filtering mechanism that seems to grow in strength with inverse proportion to time's passage. I would wager that this all contends with our focus. It is easier to focus upon that which no longer is surrounded by the daily, insignificant distractions which disappear in a haze as the days' closures accumulate. So it is a matter of focus, a focus that is hard to acquire in daily events, yet easily orchestrated when looking out upon bygone years or the potential moments to come.

There are moments, a very few indeed, in which one knows "this is the time I was made to exist". But those moments do find their end and one is left with scores of insignificance.

Thus, one is left with the remaining quandary: how does one institute the focus needed to truly appreciate today on the same level as the memorable junctures of another time?