It feels fitting that Rod Serling, a man who understood the importance of moving forward, entered into this world as a year came to a close. The date was 100 years ago, Dec. 25, 1924, the locale Binghamton, N.Y., a place that was to remain lodged within Serling’s heart for the all-too brief 50 years of his life.
And though this progenitor of worlds fantastical and spell-binding — worlds which had much to say about our world — produced a voluminous body of work, he is remembered primarily for “The Twilight Zone,” a show that infiltrated America’s cultural psyche like no other.
Nearly everyone has their favorite episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but the best — and the one that meant the most to Serling and is especially valuable now — was also among the earliest. This would be the fifth episode of the series’ first season, called “Walking Distance,” which aired on Oct. 30, 1959, with a teleplay by Serling.
The story is about a 36-year-old man — which resonates as the equivalent of 50-something today — named Martin Sloane who is burnt out on life. He believes he has no purpose.
That’s a lot of people at present. And what many of us do is retreat into the past. That’s where we wish to be because we’re so dissatisfied with where we are and we don’t envision that we’ll get to anything better.
The episode’s conceit is simple but brilliant — Sloan walks straight back into his past and the hometown in which he grew up and was happy, a fictional stand-in for Serling’s own Binghamton. He meets the younger version of himself, and even his parents at the family home. They put the door in his face, not believing this wild tale, but eventually Sloane manages to convince his father of who he is.
I am an anti-nostalgia man. I loathe nostalgia because I think when we dwell on what was, we forsake what can be. If you spend too much time in the past, you will lose yourself in something that doesn’t exist, and with that you risk losing your reason, your ability to deal with what is real in the here and now.
I once had an editor who liked to say, “It’s time to press the nostalgia button.” Meaning, he didn’t want to give a reader a work of value that would add to their current life; he wanted to take them back. It struck me as this form of mental and emotional opiating.
We see this all the time. Many people listen to music, for instance, to be reminded of what their life was like at 16. To return to that moment.
But that moment is gone. And if you aren’t advancing, you’re falling behind. Behind who? Yourself. What you can be, offer, learn, give and do for others. I am only interested in anything insofar as it helps me move forward. With nostalgia comes a defeatist attitude. And vice versa. If nostalgia had a slogan, it would be “The best has come and gone.” That’s not going to be good for you.
That doesn’t mean you act like the past hasn’t happened or that you forget it. To move forward efficaciously is to understand the past, not live in it. What went well, what didn’t, what we did right, what we did wrong, what we’ve already done and needn’t do again, and what we know we haven’t tried yet.
Sloan, at first, never wants to return to his life. He prefers to stay in this spot he long ago vacated. Never mind all of the life he has ahead of him. Martin gets an invaluable piece of advice from his dad, who tells him that this isn’t his time. This time belongs to his childhood self. His time is elsewhere. And if he makes the most of his time, the best may still be yet to come.
Time can be a place. Especially when you’re moving forward. What matters most — and is most deserving of one’s time — is what is next. Perpetually what is next. Not what was. The latter is done. It can’t be overwritten. But tomorrow has yet to be composed.
That is the importance of moving forward. Don’t confine yourself to a different kind of twilight zone of days that are gone. They are not coming back. They’re done. But you can always be starting and heading out to your own lands of adventure and wonder.
As Serling’s voiceover opening narration on the show’s very first episode, “Where Is Everybody?,” says, “the time is now.” The time is always now.
Fleming is a writer.
