"What we really seek in our nostalgic reveries, I want to suggest, is the inertness of the past." Extremely well said. I have never thought of nostalgia in this way but I think it's true.
Sometimes I spend time remembering how nostalgia used to be.
A few questions went through my as I read this being incredibly nostalgic this past year as well:
1. Do post-life altering events like a pandemic stoke hidden nostalgic behaviors at a higher degree of a population?
2. What percentage of great creative works (any kind) were the result of revelry of that nostalgic wave of thinking?
Obviously this work is a meta result.
As someone wise said to me once "the past is a nice place to visit, but I won't want to live there." I'll extend this thought "If I'm there, I'll harness it to produce art."
This is a fantastic essay. As someone who went through a rough divorce and estrangement from my kid (I don't even really know why), I know nostalgia well. This essay does a great job of investigating what is going on there.
Jello Biafra Nostalga For An Age That Never Existed:
"...after a while I am still exhausted but have a closet full of kitsch."
That sums it up.
nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
I loved this piece; sometimes I think of reviewing past memories as akin to rewatching a familiar show. There are no surprises, so even the hardest plot-twists have less anxiety associated with them.
IMO nostalgia is like the DRAM refresh for my own memory. I think nostalgia feels good to incentivize me to do it, like how sex feels good to incentivize the perpetuation of humanity as a whole. I suspect that when I “remember something” I’m actually remembering the last time I remembered it, not directly remembering the original event. Some day I would like to try building a filesystem like that where storage and access are the same operation.
Source: drugs