Nostalgia

Back when the term was first coined, “nostalgia” (pseudo-Greek, literally meaning longing for home) was considered a kind of sickness, perhaps curable with opium, leeches, and a journey to the Swiss Alps. Per the hypothesis presented in our discussion piece (Nostalgia and Its Discontents), nostalgia features a kind of romance with one’s own fantasy, a double exposure, or a superimposition of two images: the overlay of one’s dream life, whether it be of place or time or some other fantasy, onto one’s everyday who-let-the-dogs-out existence.

Take, for example, the refrain sometimes spoken in tones of wistfulness about the state of excellence in modern America, imagining that our present reality as squalid and diminished compared to the good old days when household appliances lasted, and workers worked, and manners were exquisite, and mariages endured, and wars were just, and honor mattered, and you could buys a decent tomato.

Reconciliation of the two versions may be a corollary of what F. Scott Fitzgerald described as the mark of first-rate intelligence i.e. the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. Yes, but the fantasy version often beckons.

The lament, it is suggested, is less a yearning for a place than it is for a different time, one of our childhood marked by the slower rhythms of our dreams as we seek to turn such imagined history into our own private mythology. The effect then becomes particularly powerful applied to a group or a contingent such as a voting block we’d discussed with reference to the MAGA appeal as a key feature of the Trump campaign.

Another form of historical nostalgia, anemoia, is distinguished as being based on a fictional account of a time and place one has never actually lived through – a phenomenon mostly driven by a cynicism or general dissatisfaction with the present. Then there is the case of anticipatory nostalgia featuring people who struggle to enjoy the present moment in order to protect themselves from the inevitable hurt when the moment ends e.g. a parent’s sadness watching their child play knowing those days of innocence can’t last forever.

We may share our own dance with nostalgia and whether those episodes reflect pleasure or “discontent.” One advantage of later-life reflection is the opportunity for greater objectivity. A formal memoir may help advance the process – my own revealed the sad truth of my having missed out on so much of my then-present back in my 20's due to a future orientation.

Then comes nostalgia’s scruffy half-brother, projection, another type of fantasy that may be a source of either pleasure or discontent whether it’s the one doing the projecting or its object – how dare you not live up to my fantasy.

For perspective, just remember – as sure as today will become tomorrow's yesterday – these days are indeed some future’s “good old days.”