Veargangenheitsbewältigung

Veargangenheitsbewältigung
Trans: coming to terms with or overcoming the past
Margaret E. Holt
June, 2001

Formal study in adult education includes time spent on defining the concept “adult”. When asked, “Who is an adult?” students offer a range of ideas that include psychological, sociological, biological, cultural, historical, legal, and reputational/positional considerations. Initially there will be a few who will challenge the importance of asking this question. I would argue that it is a most worthy inquiry, since examining the meaning of mature status can initiate a positive self-reflection and critique. The writer Alice Walker noted that in the Cherokee community a woman becomes officially an elder when she reaches age 52. Further, Walker, explained that at this time, women not only have a “right” to speak out within their community, but they bear a responsibility to do so.

I would like to see a shift in our society away from people wallowing in a dissatisfying past to assuming a responsibility for the future. Adult status then might be viewed as coming to terms with or overcoming the weaker less-constructive dimensions of one’s past. Instead of operating from a “naming and blaming” worldview, the mature adult might move into a “naming and framing” worldview. Certainly most adults want to review and understand their past, how it shapes their present, and directs their future. Yet, so much emphasis on individual rights and other-blaming based on past experiences lodges people in a “stuck” mode.

Or course, this conceptualization of adulthood could be assigned to the purview of therapists, and those privileged to pursue professional consultation might find treatments to help them overcome and adjust in a more intellectual or healthy manner. Yet, this approach would again privilege the small number of the more affluent and educated adults in this society. Perhaps adult educators could help advance self-reflection and activity that moves and inspires adults to realize and emphasize the Janus facing the future and loosen the crick in the neck that holds their attention to the Janus facing those days of yore. [Note: even our President, George W. Bush, informed the press, “On this we can agree. The past is over!”] Of course, the challenge is learning how to pull the best of the past into the present and move beyond the past that is dysfunctional.

Further, adult educators have to weigh in on the meaning of how and if we apply what we have learned from the past to the future. Personally, I sense too many so-called adults live unexamined lives. I’m saddened by evidence of a lack of curiosity, succumbing to consumptive habits of daily life that are void of stimulation and renewal. What has been will be. This stance is dangerous for individuals and society. Have we given up on our pursuit of happiness? The essayist Addison said we needed attention to three dimensions of our lives to achieve happiness: 1) Someone to love, 2) Good work to do, and 3) Something to look forward to. I’d pose that those who cannot express much depth in what they are looking forward to are probably caught in their pasts, like a needle on a damaged record where the same words endlessly repeat and the rest of the song is never heard.

So I’d like to recommend that adult educators jiggle some needles.