Willy Trolove: Riding the range of reminiscence does a power of good

Life is a stampede, thundering across the great wide plain of time, and, like all stampedes, it has its own rules.

If you hang on too long to the tired old buffalo of the past, and don't jump on to the wildebeest of the present, you'll get trampled by the snorting great bison of the future.

Confused? That's okay. It wouldn't be a stampede if it wasn't confusing.

What I'm trying to say is that to cope with the future we need to accept the present, which means letting go of the past. The best way to let go of the past is to reminisce.

Reminiscing is good. Reminiscing is healthy.

Reminiscing allows us to mourn for the simple life we had before we bought one of those all-in-one faxprintercopierhairdryer machines. These days the world is changing so rapidly that if you don't do enough reminiscing then the number of things you have to reminisce about piles up, and soon you're stuck in the 1980s, wondering what happened to that nice Mr Rowling, baffled by microwave ovens, and shopping for those thin leather ties that double as belts.

Believe me. I'm speaking from experience. Look at music. If you haven't already reminisced about record players and how infuriating it was when your favorite LP got scratched and repeated the same line, repeated the same line, repeated the same line, until you thumped the table, you're in trouble.

That's because you also have to reminisce about FM radio and how it was once new and exciting but is now tired and absurd and full of young people who say things like "Nah, yeh, right on dude" and "Wazzup?" and "We're remixin' a hip-hop R'n'B thang", which mean "Yes", "Can I help you?", and "I seem to have misplaced my brain".

Then you have to reminisce about your stereo-cassette player and how it made strange constipated cow sounds whenever it was about to chew up one of your Solid Gold tapes.

And finally, you have to reminisce about CDs and how they were meant to be indestructible and last forever, but aren't and don't.

If you haven't reminisced about all of these you won't be able to reminisce about mini-disks as they get replaced by iPods which, one day, you'll also have to reminisce about.

In short, you have to keep on top of your reminiscing.

Take cellphones. Some people do. A few years ago I wrote in this newspaper that cellphones are ghastly and that life was better without them.

I was reminiscing, which is just as well, because now I do have a cellphone that I can't live without.

And I wouldn't have been able to cope with having a cellphone if I hadn't reminisced about not having one first.

Still confused?

Good. That's a sign that I'm getting through to you. Cellphones are changing our lives so quickly and so completely that you must reminisce about them at regular intervals just to keep up.

Not long ago you needed only one cellphone but these days it's fashionable to own three or four of the things.

You have to have at least one work cellphone, one home cellphone, and one old cellphone around the house that gets coverage only when you're out on the lawn standing on a garden implement. Any garden implement will do, as long as it's not your spouse.

Owning more than one cellphone allows you to say things like, "Oh, didn't I give you my new number?" or "Oh, I've changed networks" or "Oh, I've given that phone to my great-aunt Mavis" when someone you don't like asks you why you haven't been returning their calls.

Now is a good time to reminisce about cellphones because Telecom is introducing exciting new 3G services that make regular cellphones obsolete. And if you don't reminisce about them, you won't be able to cope when the 3G phone is superseded by the microchip in your arm, the telepathic hands-free wonder-wand, and, eventually, the global biometric superbrain.

But it's not just music and cellphones. The list of things we need to reminisce about grows every day - 10-speeds, car engines that aren't run by computers, home-cooked dinners around the kitchen table, smoking in bars, Paul Holmes, Maori Cabinet ministers.

All these things are going or gone, and reminiscing about them helps us to come to terms with their loss.

It steadies our minds, calms our fevered lives, and readies us for the next great innovation, the next big thing, the next giant leap in the darkness.

Still confused? Well, I'm sorry. I'd like to give you some more help but I've got to jump on to this wildebeest.