My grandmother always said, “Everything in moderation…” This applied everything. She didn’t think anything was bad for you except for overindulgence.
I think this applies to nostalgia. Fond memories, pleasant thoughts, and the like are good. Constantly yearning for the past cripples you from appreciating the present and future.
What am I nostalgic for? I’m nostalgic for a simpler time when I would occasionally get bored and have to rely on creativity to pull me out of it. Nowadays, there is no time to be bored.
Hi All. Recently I started thinking about nostalgia a lot. Its part of an abstract art series I will paint. Nostalgia is such an interesting word originating from a diagnosis that sounds more like PTSD in the 1600s to how we use it now....wistfully remembering 'the good old days'. The challenge for me will be figuring out how I express this in abstracted images! Yeeha! I've got my work cut out for me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Austin and everyone..
I treat nostalgia-breaks as brief escapes from 'ick-factor' of the 2020's. [No, not a political statement...] Very useful moments of appreciation for special people and strokes of luck that came my way.
To take a different tack on this - years ago when in grad school, I read a book by Fred Davis titled "Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia." It's from 1979 & one of those old, out of print books you can get on Amazon for, like, $90.
Anyway - One of Davis's points is that nostalgia allows us to restore "a sense of sociohistoric continuity with respect to that which had verged on being discontinuous." That's all very academic, but in other words, when I take my ancient stuffed toy Jimmy out of his musty storage box, suddenly my connection to my mom's aunts, uncles, and cousins in Chicago come out of the box with him, and a kind of continuity to those people I barely knew is restored. He arrived in a big plastic Easter egg from my Aunt Marie, and I carried him everywhere with me until his nose fell off and his hand unraveled and he had stains all over his face from "sharing" my jelly sandwich. Just the feel of his little sawdust-filled body in my hand does the trick. We all need that "through line."
Nostalgia for making snow angels in the first snow of the year in my home town, for everything about Christmas morning when I was 8; for sitting @ dinner table while our Mom read from Historian’s History of the World and guessing which classical composer wrote the music we were listening to.
I have a conflicted relationship with nostalgic artifacts as I have old pictures and cards that I find it too difficult to look at and I really have to be in a mood for reminiscing. But I think it's true that some segments of life seem to have more ups than downs.
I always look back to that period between the two world wars here in England. When new writers were being created and discovered, and social history was turned on its head.
Intern created further great writers like Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh and The Sitwells. Their writings are available today on Audible and well worth a look. Sometimes looking back puts today in perspective and helps you work out what you will do tomorrow. As ever Austin thanks for giving us the opportunity to write and think :) Tim from Wiltshire England
There is, as always, a lot to digest here, but on the lighter side, it is apparent that you have been making lists for a very long time. Your movie list made me laugh. Thank you Austin
The best thing I've read about nostalgia is what YOU wrote here. It sums it all up nicely as a longing. My childhood was the pits, abuse, alcoholic parents, divorces, physical fights were witnessed at the tender age of 6. But that is not what stands out. It's the toys I played with, the shows I watched that soothed me (Flintstones were PRIMETIME), the cereal I ate as a bandaid (Quake or Quisp anyone?). The love I felt from my grandmother who made sure I had the trendy clothes even though they took a while with layaway. Also the TIME, plenty of it, to think about things, and that we don't have a whole lot of as an adult. Tapping into that with advertising and products is a win-win. It's one reason I adored Mad Men
This is so good, Austin. Re: nostalgia and ‘a little dab’ll do ya’! I concur. It’s like feeling pain or sadness or longing or yearning for anything, anyone, any place anytime - visiting is lovely but you don’t want to live there ...
For me, nostalgia is muted most of the time, and I prefer it that way. I had a difficult childhood. Then I had a difficult early adulthood until my mid-30s, by which time I was I finally able to repair/mitigate/banish the damage my childhood caused.
That said, when I occasionally come across photos, mementos, and favorite songs of the past, they feel like little "happiness" messengers. They remind me of the intermittent yet many sparks of joy I also experienced back then.
Two things that I came across recently that are about nostalgia and which both struck me as vividly true.
First, A poem by Robert Hayden and second, a quote from Bruce Springsteen.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
And 2) This quote from Bruce Springsteen in a profile piece in the May 8 New Yorker about the film maker Paul Schrader
"You never get out. You get out sort of. But what you forget is how much the past feels like home. No matter what it was like, you know? You're moved to move away from it. And then you're also obsessed. Artists are always trying to figure things out. They can't stop. Those are the people we're interested in...Every artist has one story to tell, over and over and over and over and over and over again. It varies, it changes, it shifts a little bit. If you're doing it correctly, it morphs every time you tell it. More information is revealed. At the same time you're still rooted in where you came from. That's just us."
I have found that new things will trigger a sense of nostalgia. I recently purchases a new set of sheets with a kind of retro pattern. At the time I just loved how cheery they were. As I put them on my bed with a summer breeze coming in the window, I flashed to thw cottage where I spent most of my summers growing up. The moment opened a portal to the past. It made these new sheets extra special. Little did I know, they came with the starry sky, the cool Wisconsin night breeze, and a view of the bay.
I often wonder how faulty my memory of my parents is. I wonder if the challenges we encountered later in life painted over happier times. I hear others tell stories of their seemingly idyllic childhoods, and wonder if the truth is somewhere between my memory and theirs.
I used too long for the days of my childhood when life was slow, then I realized that there feeling that I long for is in my own control. More often than not, my life is full of too much because I make it so. If one good came from two years of less hurry, even though not less worry (COVID was scary.), I experienced a long forgotten slowness in my life, and I liked it. So much so that when the world came alive again, I kept a simpler life a priority. It’s not always easy, but then again nothing worthwhile usually is. Xo
My grandmother always said, “Everything in moderation…” This applied everything. She didn’t think anything was bad for you except for overindulgence.
I think this applies to nostalgia. Fond memories, pleasant thoughts, and the like are good. Constantly yearning for the past cripples you from appreciating the present and future.
What am I nostalgic for? I’m nostalgic for a simpler time when I would occasionally get bored and have to rely on creativity to pull me out of it. Nowadays, there is no time to be bored.
It’s like Bob Pinciotti told Eric, Donna, and the rest, “You don’t know it, but these are the best days of your life.”
Hi All. Recently I started thinking about nostalgia a lot. Its part of an abstract art series I will paint. Nostalgia is such an interesting word originating from a diagnosis that sounds more like PTSD in the 1600s to how we use it now....wistfully remembering 'the good old days'. The challenge for me will be figuring out how I express this in abstracted images! Yeeha! I've got my work cut out for me. Thanks for sharing your thoughts Austin and everyone..
I treat nostalgia-breaks as brief escapes from 'ick-factor' of the 2020's. [No, not a political statement...] Very useful moments of appreciation for special people and strokes of luck that came my way.
To take a different tack on this - years ago when in grad school, I read a book by Fred Davis titled "Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia." It's from 1979 & one of those old, out of print books you can get on Amazon for, like, $90.
Anyway - One of Davis's points is that nostalgia allows us to restore "a sense of sociohistoric continuity with respect to that which had verged on being discontinuous." That's all very academic, but in other words, when I take my ancient stuffed toy Jimmy out of his musty storage box, suddenly my connection to my mom's aunts, uncles, and cousins in Chicago come out of the box with him, and a kind of continuity to those people I barely knew is restored. He arrived in a big plastic Easter egg from my Aunt Marie, and I carried him everywhere with me until his nose fell off and his hand unraveled and he had stains all over his face from "sharing" my jelly sandwich. Just the feel of his little sawdust-filled body in my hand does the trick. We all need that "through line."
Nostalgia for making snow angels in the first snow of the year in my home town, for everything about Christmas morning when I was 8; for sitting @ dinner table while our Mom read from Historian’s History of the World and guessing which classical composer wrote the music we were listening to.
I have a conflicted relationship with nostalgic artifacts as I have old pictures and cards that I find it too difficult to look at and I really have to be in a mood for reminiscing. But I think it's true that some segments of life seem to have more ups than downs.
The good ol'days
I always look back to that period between the two world wars here in England. When new writers were being created and discovered, and social history was turned on its head.
Intern created further great writers like Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh and The Sitwells. Their writings are available today on Audible and well worth a look. Sometimes looking back puts today in perspective and helps you work out what you will do tomorrow. As ever Austin thanks for giving us the opportunity to write and think :) Tim from Wiltshire England
There is, as always, a lot to digest here, but on the lighter side, it is apparent that you have been making lists for a very long time. Your movie list made me laugh. Thank you Austin
The best thing I've read about nostalgia is what YOU wrote here. It sums it all up nicely as a longing. My childhood was the pits, abuse, alcoholic parents, divorces, physical fights were witnessed at the tender age of 6. But that is not what stands out. It's the toys I played with, the shows I watched that soothed me (Flintstones were PRIMETIME), the cereal I ate as a bandaid (Quake or Quisp anyone?). The love I felt from my grandmother who made sure I had the trendy clothes even though they took a while with layaway. Also the TIME, plenty of it, to think about things, and that we don't have a whole lot of as an adult. Tapping into that with advertising and products is a win-win. It's one reason I adored Mad Men
Nostalgia is non-objective and therefore helpful and problematic all at the same time; a terrific tool for self- inquiry however not a reliable source
This is so good, Austin. Re: nostalgia and ‘a little dab’ll do ya’! I concur. It’s like feeling pain or sadness or longing or yearning for anything, anyone, any place anytime - visiting is lovely but you don’t want to live there ...
For me, nostalgia is muted most of the time, and I prefer it that way. I had a difficult childhood. Then I had a difficult early adulthood until my mid-30s, by which time I was I finally able to repair/mitigate/banish the damage my childhood caused.
That said, when I occasionally come across photos, mementos, and favorite songs of the past, they feel like little "happiness" messengers. They remind me of the intermittent yet many sparks of joy I also experienced back then.
Two things that I came across recently that are about nostalgia and which both struck me as vividly true.
First, A poem by Robert Hayden and second, a quote from Bruce Springsteen.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
And 2) This quote from Bruce Springsteen in a profile piece in the May 8 New Yorker about the film maker Paul Schrader
"You never get out. You get out sort of. But what you forget is how much the past feels like home. No matter what it was like, you know? You're moved to move away from it. And then you're also obsessed. Artists are always trying to figure things out. They can't stop. Those are the people we're interested in...Every artist has one story to tell, over and over and over and over and over and over again. It varies, it changes, it shifts a little bit. If you're doing it correctly, it morphs every time you tell it. More information is revealed. At the same time you're still rooted in where you came from. That's just us."
I have found that new things will trigger a sense of nostalgia. I recently purchases a new set of sheets with a kind of retro pattern. At the time I just loved how cheery they were. As I put them on my bed with a summer breeze coming in the window, I flashed to thw cottage where I spent most of my summers growing up. The moment opened a portal to the past. It made these new sheets extra special. Little did I know, they came with the starry sky, the cool Wisconsin night breeze, and a view of the bay.
I often wonder how faulty my memory of my parents is. I wonder if the challenges we encountered later in life painted over happier times. I hear others tell stories of their seemingly idyllic childhoods, and wonder if the truth is somewhere between my memory and theirs.
I used too long for the days of my childhood when life was slow, then I realized that there feeling that I long for is in my own control. More often than not, my life is full of too much because I make it so. If one good came from two years of less hurry, even though not less worry (COVID was scary.), I experienced a long forgotten slowness in my life, and I liked it. So much so that when the world came alive again, I kept a simpler life a priority. It’s not always easy, but then again nothing worthwhile usually is. Xo