To construct one's identity that goes on within the life span - as well as to construct any sort of plan - one needs time. Memory of the past, fantasies of the future and present experience make the landscape of who you are (an identity) and where do you go to (a plan).

Now I am thinking of two people. One of them sink in the past with joy as it was a warm bath. He spends load of time digging in old archives and documenting the history of his family. The second one tries to escape from his yesterday. He is not who he used to be. He does not like who he was and he tries to destroy that person by blanking his memory.

The first person uses the past to create himself because stories from the past which were not directly experienced matter only if we want them to matter. On the other hand: we need these stories when our narration can borrow their meaning and as the past is unchangeable this meaning is irreplaceable from what matters to us. This process relieves us from the fear of lacking identity and understandable place in time. Family mythology relieves us from the necessity of facing horrible question: who will I be when I die? Genealogy pays off.

In the second case the uncomfortable past is the more real, the more we try to escape from it. Still nobody runs away from what is not important. A will to hide it or cut it off shows clearly how much a bond with the past is strong. Alcohol addicted people who have worked through their past say: I am not who I want to be but I am already not who I was. A person who is afraid of naming the past shows a fear of this past which still is dangerous and present as a threat of becoming present again.

In fact, a coherent connection between the past and the future can be created only in the experience of the present. Nothing can change the past. Everything is possible in the future. That is why the past is a domain of helplessness and the future is a domain of omnipotence. Both helplessness and omnipotence are illusions. The past can by transformed symbolically and the future is dependent on the past.