The past is a funny thing.
Because it isn’t.
Not really.
Sure, it already happened, but it’s not behind us. Not truly past.
It is in us, and as such, influences both the here and now and what might one day be.
If you’re not careful with the past, it can turn you into a pillar of salt. Consider Lot’s wife or Miss Haversham.
But the past can also inform, let you know who you are and where you came from.
My father used to say we stand on the shoulders of all who came before us. I think that’s true and it’s always made me something of an ancestor worshipper.
As a kid my mind took my father’s words for what they were and created an image of a massive human pyramid, thousands of feet tall, the base wider than any pyramid in Egypt. And I alone was the capstone, firmly planted on my parents shoulders, looking out across millions of similar human pyramids, each capped with a single child. What I remember is that the people who made up the lower tiers of all the human pyramids surrounding me looked surprisingly similar. On the very bottom human course of all these disparate pyramids, the men and women looked so identical they could have all come from the same family. 
I think this is what Sammy Marques has been getting at all along and why his comedic stories work so well. Comedy knits together the human family in the same way tragedy does. Both views point us toward our commonality not our differences.

The past is a funny thing.
Because it isn’t.
Not really.
Sure, it already happened, but it’s not behind us. Not truly past.
It is in us, and as such, influences both the here and now and what might one day be.
If you’re not careful with the past, it can turn you into a pillar of salt. Consider Lot’s wife or Miss Haversham.
But the past can also inform, let you know who you are and where you came from.
My father used to say we stand on the shoulders of all who came before us. I think that’s true and it’s always made me something of an ancestor worshipper.
As a kid my mind took my father’s words for what they were and created an image of a massive human pyramid, thousands of feet tall, the base wider than any pyramid in Egypt. And I alone was the capstone, firmly planted on my parents shoulders, looking out across millions of similar human pyramids, each capped with a single child. What I remember is that the people who made up the lower tiers of all the human pyramids surrounding me looked surprisingly similar. On the very bottom human course of all these disparate pyramids, the men and women looked so identical they could have all come from the same family. 
I think this is what Sammy Marques has been getting at all along and why his comedic stories work so well. Comedy knits together the human family in the same way tragedy does. Both views point us toward our commonality not our differences.