Under normal circumstances our brain glorifies the pleasant past and represses the unpleasant experiences, while filling the future with anticipated plans and rewards.  The opposite occurs in depression, when the past is made the root of present trouble and of a hopeless future.  Cheers!  Joaquín Fuster

Perhaps because good memories of the past make us happier in the present.

Under normal circumstances our brain glorifies the pleasant past and represses the unpleasant experiences, while filling the future with anticipated plans and rewards.  The opposite occurs in depression, when the past is made the root of present trouble and of a hopeless future.  Cheers!  Joaquín Fuster

I completely agree with Dr. Fuster. Our cognitive mechanisms delete our unpleasant experiences so pleasant events are more prominent in this new scenario. In addition, even aversive memories are remembered in a more positive way, reaching the level of anecdote.

I believe this is an even stronger effect in recent years, with the increase in picture taking of everyday life.  Known as the "Kodak effect" - the vast majority of pictures a person poses for will have everyone in the picture smiling, and in general pictures are taken at positive moments in life.  Therefore, pictures tend to remind us of the good events in the past more so than the negative.  Photographic reminders can then make those memories stronger, and also lead to a confirmation bias when thinking about the past.

Part of the answer may lie in the fact that long-term memories are only fragmentary and when we recall past events we fill in the gaps between the fragments with socially reasonable information. In this case, all recollections are slightly suspect.

On top of this, shared recollections need to fit into socially acceptable narrative structures. Research has indicated that not all narratives are equally acceptable - negative stories without a positive resolution are difficult for others to respond to and so get voiced less frequently. The less a memory is rehearsed through re-telling, the less likely it is to be remembered.

Another part to the answer may link to the idea that when we try to predict the future most people are very bad at it - they overestimate how well something will work or underestimate the associated problems. This arises from the fact that, again, we're bad at including all the detailed information in our imagination of the future. Interestingly, there is the suggestion that this inability to predict the future is partly based on personality type - people with a depressive personality are better at identifying the details that will prove problematic. I wonder whether this applies to memory (i.e. retrospective imagining) - are people who have a depressive personality less likely to think that the past was so good and more likely to pick out the negative details.

Dear All

Thanks for your well thought responses.

With regards

Israr

Well this is not my area of expertise, however since the question is very interesting, I am trying to search for an answer from a different perspective. Its not only the past of a person that is signified as old. A person's past memories has been well addressed in the above posts.

Anybody or anything or any phenomenon which dates back in time can also refer to old and hence gold. For example, an old person, an old monument, an old historical fact, an old piece of rare art, a historical battlefield, relics of an old civilization etc. all can fall under the purview of the saying "old is gold". For an old person, he/she has accumulated immense experience in his/her life and they are worth gold for younger generations to come. For the case of things, any personal thing which is old creates a sense of nostalgia and belongingness within us that we try to long for it more and more. For any old artifact of history etc., its rarity, uniqueness and human excitement to relate it to past few thousand years makes it worthy as gold. Not only that, we always have a tendency to find a way to our past, roots, to something which dates back in time. That is reflected in the search for past, search for the start of universe, search for big-bang, search for the first life form on this planet, search for human evolution, so on and so forth.

Dear Arkaprovo Das

You are excellently right both in your words and in your approach. Thanks a lot.

Best regards

Israr

Thanks Mohammad Israr Khan sir.

Our life is a golden gift as in order to carry out our action of our life ,creator has provided with our physical body which we may call our existence of our life. To add the fragrance in our body ,creator has provided with the head heart & untold divinity within us .

With our mind ,brain ,& our heart with the controlling breathing we carry out our day to day action with the energy force of intelligence ,to carry out our action which may help us in our growth ,development & whatever we have contribute for us ,for our family & also for our social fabrics.

With the passage of time we pass our years with the successive process & quite good cases we are also celebrating as our birthday .

With this growth & development it is very likely that we have passed our growth under the mixture of joy & pleasure & also with sorrow & tears . This growth in our quite good cases make our mind under a thoughtful vision with the realization of end of our life & in this situation we all the time come out with the rosy fragrance of our life time .Sometime under the smile &  in certain cases our mind contemplates to search what we have achieved in our golden period of life & this certifies that Old is Gold.

This is my personal opinion 

Dear Rohit Sir,

You are a treasure trove of many golden experiences.

Regards

The dream of Nebuchadnezzar (Book of Daniel) talks us about the prophetic vision of a great statue. The head, of gold, was though to represent the Babylonian empire, considered to be the first. Chest and arms, of silver, would refer to the following Mede and Persian Empire (second). ‘Belly and thighs’, of bronze, would point to Greek empire (third). The legs, of iron, were identified with the Roman Empire (fourth). The feet, both of iron and clay, would refer to a later fifth empire. They possibly might be thought to amalgamate the 'uncivilized' barbarian hordes, represented by clay, with rusty iron, perceived to represent the remains of the lost Roman Empire. The dream evokes a golden remote era, after which, across the rise and fall of successive empires, mankind incorporates more and more evil, while distances itself from 'original sin'.

When our brain works properly, "old" means experience, knowledge and positive experiences.

There are methods for working with old memories and biography of the older people. The purpose of these methods is to improve the quality of life of the older people. Understanding the the past helps us understand the present particularities of the older people.

What we call the past was once the present we never really cared about. People tend to be fond of the past because it affords them the opportunity to reminiscent about things they enjoyed doing or could have done better.

Most people are either busy "dreaming" about the future or thinking about the past that they miss out on experiencing the present. This is actually not good and deprives individuals the opportunity to fully experience every moment. It is the present that determines the future and also become the past. 

You are right in saying that the " ...present may be better on many measurable counts". People should strive to live in the present!  It is OK to learn from the past and plan for the future. However, we must know that the decisions we make today shapes our tomorrow. 

Regards,

Emmanuel