In general, like the past? (6)
I believe the answer is:
golden
'in general' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'like the past?' is the wordplay.
'like' becomes 'g' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'the past?' becomes 'olden' (I've seen this before).
'g'+'olden'='GOLDEN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for golden that I've seen before include "happy" , "Autumnal flower" , "Pale treacle" , "Type of apple" , "'The silver apples of the moon / the . . . . . . apples of the sun' (Yeats)" .)