Good Ol' Times

You may have noticed that Iranians tend to live in the past. This perhaps reflects partially their dissatisfaction with and the need to distance themselves from the current turn of events as well as a sense of pride in the historic accompolishments of a land that once ruled the world. It very much resembles the notion from the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," where the father of the protagonist always pointed out that the origins of most things in one way or another came from Greece. Well, the Persians think the same, except that they substitue "Greece" with the "Perisan Empire."

On a lighter note, I personally reminisce about my own past, and often daydream about what has come to pass. In my imagination, I stroll down the path I took many years to go to high school, and I painstakingly recreate every detail of the road, the trees, the buildings, and even the aroma of Persian food that permeated the streets as I returned home and walked through the neighborhoods. I also remember the gathering of the Baha'i youth, the guitars, the songs, and the drama of living the teen years in the tumult of a nation struggling to find its own post-revolution identity. Now, when I go to conferences where I meet some of the old gang, we replay the same songs and re-create the same ambiance. It is a way of dealing with homesickness; it is a way of living in the past.
Here is an image from the Chicago Conference, 2004:

And here is a picture from a get-together Charlottesville, a town that is soon to become part of our past: