Nostalgia is a psychedelic drive-through within one’s self. One moment you are in a flashback of fleeting moments then suddenly you are in a melancholic parking lot of feelings. As you sit in the middle of that empty corner, overwhelmed by the memories, the world caves in, and you are reminded that times have changed. Trippy, but how does nostalgia amplify that feeling?
In an episode of Mad Men, Don Draper, the series protagonist, said that nostalgia “is a twinge in your heart that is more powerful than memory,” It makes us ache to where we want to go again, and he was right. Nostalgia makes us feel the absence—the distance between the past and the present reminding us how much we changed along with everything else, and it’s quite fascinating.
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A lot of us might be already averse to change, but admit it or not: it’s a part of life that has always been hard to grasp on. We’re often unprepared for it, especially since it’s never easy to detach ourselves from the things we have in the present. So when we find ourselves looking back, a part of us ache to go back, when things were a tinge *probably* sweeter than now.
Most conversations I have with my friends often include reminiscing, and I find it odd as it is fascinating how we make them turn out much better than what they originally were at the time. Was it because we constantly weigh in comparison the past to the now? Was it because we subconsciously chose to exaggerate some features of “then” as simpler times because we felt it were simpler if not much better than what’s happening now?
A nightmare dressed in nostalgia
Many people may not know it, but extreme nostalgia syndrome is REAL. It is described as “a state wherein an individual excessively indulges in the memories of the past and refuses to enjoy the present moment.” I believe some of us go through this without us knowing.
Reminiscing is never a crime. It’s human nature to feel nostalgia and have a part of you that longs to have those old things back in your life. It’s hard not to feel some form of nostalgia because it comes in a lot of forms. Through old Spongebob Squarepants episodes you watched after school, or the Jay Sean music played on Myx, and the snacks you bought from sari-sari stores after an afternoon of playing street games with the kids in your street. Those are things we’ll always treasure and hold dear because they carry the innocence and glee we had at that age.
But then again, nostalgia can be toxic, too. Too much of it, and we begin to see little of what the present has offered and obsess over the past. Too much of it and we end up paralleling so much of our current lives trying to recreate it, and hold ourselves hostage from venturing what’s out there because almost every sentence about the now will be suffixed with but it isn’t like before.
We have to remember to take the past as it is: the past. We, along with everything else, encounter change. It’s often for the better and it’s often something beyond our control. As much as we want to, we have to realize that time is not rigid and people aren’t, too.
There’s always going to be some big leap we have to take, and we might not welcome it at first, we have to realize that the things we have in the present have led us to become better people, matured, and more involved with the world.
