Lesson of the Week: Nostalgia

I've enjoyed writing in this blog throughout the summer, though not all of my writings have been very substantive. To help me continue to write through the school year, I'm going to start doing "Lesson of the Week". Hopefully this will make my writing more consistent, and more interesting.

Lesson of the Week:

Often times I fall victim to feelings of nostalgia. I do it all the time, when I hear a song, or when I catch up with a friend, I begin to heavily focus on the past. For me these feelings are very difficult to deal with, especially when trying to discern whether the feelings are constructive or not. In my life there seems to be two types of nostalgia, healthy nostalgia, and destructive nostalgia. I believe that there is a distinct contrast between the two.

Healthy nostalgia is the sort of nostalgia that occurs when talking with an old friend. When we reflect on the past, we laugh, we talk, and we ask about what is happening in each others present affairs. Healthy nostalgia acts as a bridge between others, its a shared experience that can help build a present relationship. Destructive nostalgia is very different. Destructive looks upon the past as the end all and best of experiences. Destructive does not enhance our present context, as does healthy nostalgia, rather it destroys our present context, and it makes us covet our past selves.

This is a distinction that I realized when I watched an episode of “Penn & Teller: BULLSHIT!”. Their point was that overly nostalgic thoughts distort the past into our idealized version, and are a reflection of one's present unhappy circumstances. Looking into our past too much will destroy our present and we'll never be happy because we'll always want to go back to that place that only exists in our heads. I could wallow in past experiences for the rest of my life, constantly wishing I was somewhere else. Or I can take initiative and create new nostalgia with new experiences with other people. That's what I learned this week.

-Trav