To think that love and other things can be felt through centuries

[Longnightmoon]

All that love and gratitude felt for all those brave young men who fought the Japanese, and the Nazis. Of course most of us will have known many of the survivors personally, but that won't actually last much longer.

I like to think that those who died fighting could feel our love and gratitude from 2025 and beyond, flowing back to them. I hope they could feel that.

I feel the same about other too, some even further back, the skeleton of a roman baby in a local museum, I just want him to feel love from me. Victims of the slave trade, victims of the holocaust, etc.

I think we all feel like that to some extent, I know I have seen threads after a child has been killed by parents, and all posters seem to be trying to send love backwards in time in the hope that the child could have felt it.

But if that is a real thing, then can we feel anything now sent back to us from centuries in the future? I hope love, interest, human commonality. I hope not anger that we have over used fossil fuels, etc.

Or am I totally deluded and should I be concentrating on people who need to feel love here and now, those starving children in Sudan, that we might actually help

YABU - step away from the vodka
YANBU - there is a human thread that connects us all, past and future

YANBU

There's a museum near me that has a slave pen in it. It was found in rural Kentucky and disassembled and reassembled inside the museum. Every time I've been inside I've felt overwhelming sadness. That's just empathy, I think?

They cannot feel anything. They are dead.

But we can honour them by reminding people what they were fighting against.

Honestly I don’t know the answer, but I understand. I feel great swaths of love for a great grandmother I never met. She died 5 days after my grandfather was born, and I’m so grateful to her, because he existed on account of her. Sometimes loved ones cross my mind and I have intense loving thoughts towards them. I don’t know if our ancestors/descendants are touched by our emotions today, but it’s lovely to think that they are. Editing this as another thought has crossed my mind… I know that trauma can cross generations. In my role in the NHS, generational trauma is something we give consideration to, so I like to think and hope that loving experiences sometimes eclipse the bad and can transcend generations too. You sound lovely btw ❤️

I think it's true that all people are linked in some way who are living now, have been alive, and who will be born in the future.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing or not, but every year, when I teach WW1 poetry (and show images, the Black Adder final clip etc) I choke up when I read the poems to the class and at times have to get them to read.

It just all feels so real to me. I look at those images of mutilated young men and my heart clenches for them.

"i think we all feel like that"...no, sorry OP I don't. I'm an academic historian and have a great interest in the past I do regular trips to battlefields, museums, Auschwitz and feel it all on an intellectual level and think about how it could have been avoided, what we can learn but I don't believe those people can feel anything or know anything.

I read a book once and it talked about some interesting studies into retroactive prayer which is what you’re suggesting. I’d recommend you look it up!

I don't mean they can feel it now, I mean could they feel it then, could they feel the love and grief that would be reaching back for them so many years later, and can we feel anything now of what the future of mankind will feel for us

No. And that’s the pity of it.

keep with the vodka - I love this idea

Almost certainly not. If you read the letters and diaries of the ordinary men, most of them are not pondering great thoughts or would have the ego to think they would be the subject of huge memoria. There's a lot of confusion and anger and hope that the world will learn something. However I think your premise is false anyway...I don't feel live for those people. Respect, sadness, empathy maybe but not love.

As a kid on a primary school trip to the tower of london we were led past a display behind glass which included (one of) the wooden block used for execution by beheading by axe or sword. There was no explanation of what it was before hand (no inclination to freak a load of young kids out i guess) and we were chatting and being silly. But as i shuffled past and looked at the block i clearly saw it drenched in blood and felt a huge wave of panic and terror pass over me and i passed clean out!

Came to put on the grass with our teacher kneeling beside me and the whole class gawking from a distance.

... so i do believe in the possibility that feelings can stick around an object or place forever.

Not sure about it going back in time though. People feeling things which haven't been felt yet seems a step too far even for me. Lovely idea though 💐