The afternoons in LA shine with bright sunlight even in February.

On such a sunny day, sitting in the living room and looking at photos from 15 years ago stored in Google Cloud feels like a time travel experience.

"I was that young back then."

This brief sigh lingering on my lips, now that I am over 50, is not just a simple recollection.

We always live under the belief that the 'I' we know today is the same as yesterday and will be the same tomorrow.

However, the emotions that arise when I see my late 30s and early 40s self in the photos are not just memories.

It's a surprising feeling mixed with strangeness and a hint of regret.

From a psychological perspective, human identity is not a fixed statue but rather resembles a 'flowing river.'

The person in the photo had far more possibilities than I do now and was standing towards the world.

In contrast, I have now carved those possibilities into a solid outcome called 'meaning.'

Though we share the same name, the person in the photo and I are essentially strangers living lives of completely different densities.

The human consciousness is indeed peculiarly designed.

We are 'creatures of deficiency,' always struggling with a sense of lack while living in the present.

My younger self: "I need to have more, I need to rise higher, why do I feel so anxious?"

Reflections of middle age: "Oh my, I was so radiant and abundant back then, why didn't I realize it?"

During those times, we stepped on the flowers blooming at our feet while chasing the mirage of the future.

The regrets felt when looking at photos in our 50s and 60s come from that 'temporal perception gap.'

Philosophically, this emotion arises from the relationship between time and self. We tend to live thinking we are the same person.

We have the same name, our memories are connected, and our lives are intertwined. Yet, when we see the faces from our 30s and 40s in photos, we realize.

That person is me, but I come to understand that they are distinctly different from who I am now.

Time feels slow and sticky while it flows, but once it passes, it compresses brutally onto a single piece of photo paper.

The most important question from a philosophical perspective is this.

"How will I view my current self 20 years from now?"

Your 70-year-old self will look at the selfie taken today and say the same thing.

"I was so young back then, it was such a good time."

Ultimately, the strangeness and regret we feel when looking at past photos serve as a warning to ourselves for underestimating the present moment.

The past is beautifully preserved under a filter, and the future is shrouded in a fog of anxiety because we have not yet traveled there, but the only truth we can breathe and touch is 'this very moment.'

Youth is not a biological number but a 'state of vitality' in how we approach our lives.

I think while watching the sunset outside my window.

My present self will also be something I look back on in the future and say, "I was so passionate back then."

Instead of feeling sorry for the past me in the photo, pondering how to fill a page in today's photo album...

Isn't that the wisest wisdom we should hold?