Nostalgia and Looking Backwards — When, What, and Where do We Look?
With the holidays around the corner, many people start to wax nostalgic about times gone past. We remember childhoods, or happier times, or maybe desperate times we feel grateful to have escaped.
Regardless, this is the time of the year when more people find themselves reminiscing about times gone by.
Sometimes, I find myself pondering what it is we look back at? And what do we look for? And to when do we look back at?
Although I was born in 1960, I usually consider the 1980s "my decade." My first two decades were so tightly "scripted" by controlling parents that I don't think of them as representative of anything much. I say that the 80s mattered in the sense that they were perhaps the most influential and formative years of my life.
But were the eighties better? Would I want to go back there?
Nope! They definitely weren't any better except perhaps in one singular respect... and that would be the belief that a better future could exist, and that I could somehow create something for myself to make life better. It was a sort of optimism that I have gradually lost over the years. And maybe that's what I miss!
I look back and I think about my father's recommendation to "always do your best." It was definitely worthy advice, but today I look at my life experience and it tells me that I have done my best, but that repeatedly my best turned out not to be good enough to succeed at whatever I was trying.
Having now passed 60 years of age, I'm also making peace with the fact that I am pretty much running out of time. And that's OK. I'll just quietly enjoy what's left, to the best of my ability.
I look back and remember some of the iconic imagery from the 1980s and I can fairly say that I definitely don't miss girls in spandex leotards, headbands, big hair, enormous shoulder pads and everything in the world being shaped like a triangle! If I never see another piece of Patrick Nagel-esque art, it will be too soon!
I have often had it suggested to me that the reason we look back at certain eras in our life with such fondness is that perhaps they were (i.e. we PERCEIVED) more carefree and we had fewer responsibilities. That might be true for some, but when I think about it on a deeper level maybe what I'm missing is a version of me that's was somewhat less faded and cynical.
I was "knee deep" in responsibilities and obligations, pretty much from the moment I left home, so I don't buy into the whole "carefree" angle.
Not entirely related...
As I pondered this question of nostalgia and longing, I considered the fact that I listene to a lot of Synthwave music these days, which has a sound similar to the '80s... while I'm also recognizing that I'm not listening to the actual 80s music, but a modern synthesized version of it.
And thus I realized that my nostalgia is also for a synthesized version of the '80s that likely never actually existed. That led me to consider the distinct possibility that most of our memories from the past are actually memory combined with wishing and our recollection of the time is very "sanitized." and perhaps didn't actually exist.
There's actually a little known word for it: Anemoia.
Makes you wonder what our collective and respective senses of nostalgia really reflect. Is it a reflection that the world is somewhat more miserable today than it was 40 years ago? Is it a reflection that we perhaps lost some opportunities somewhere? Or is it simply a reflection of our aging, and represents no more than a Latter-Day example of something that has been going on for many generations?
For now, I'm just going to enjoy the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your week!
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Created at 2023-11-20 22:22 PDT
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Nice view!
Lovely pictures, they look so beautiful
My father also tells us to always do our bests when we were young and that has brought me this far
I’m really grateful for the kind of parents that I have
Oh my dear friend @denmarkguy. I guess you just say that because somehow you actually had to see life thru the eyes of a yuppy. When in fact, you always were a true hippie at your core. A true hippy who really didn't have the opportunity to exercise his hippiness at full potential.
In my view, they certainly accurately reflect each and every one of the things you said below.
Yep, this is exactly one of the things it reflects.
Of course! This is also clearly reflected.
Yes, this too. But most of all because now we are forced to see life through the eyes of a Millennial when life already surprises us a little late and a little lacking of energy. :)