Grappling with Nostalgia
2000.03.27
Me and my older brother dressed up as superheroes, aspiring to be one one day.
A few days ago, I stumbled upon some of the old entries in my notebook I wrote back in college. I read one elaborate narration that captured the state of my vibrant mind at the time. That was only one of a total of some 2000+ notes on it.
I forgot about how I used to fiercely document every morsel of thought I carry.
I rarely revisit old journals or old photographs. I don’t like to sit with old memories. I was brought up to believe that dwelling in the "glories of the past" is not only unproductive but even potentially actively debilitating. I knew all those I admire were forward-thinkers.
Nostalgia is an unactionable, fleeting, and helpless feeling I often refuse to indulge myself in. The way I saw it, unless reflecting on the past serves as a moral guide or can be leveraged as a springboard to propel me forward, basking in the comfort of past happy memories felt indulgent.
Looking deeper, however, the truth is, what supposedly should be a fond retrospection was frequently accompanied by a sense of fear. I was scared to reminisce over the past, for it felt so precious yet so fragile. It brought up the hopeful, earnest, eager, intense, invigorated, naïve, rough-around-the-edges, and boundlessly imaginative versions of my selves that I vividly recall living as. And to be completely honest, it also came with an immense sense of grief. Grief of the past, the changed, the lost. What had felt like would last forever, unfortunately, did come to an inextricable end. What I'd thought to be "the default state", astoundingly, has found new definitions over time. Then enters anticipatory fear. The meanest, scariest antagonist in our plot. The what-ifs in fantasy land. The creeping anxiety that things will change again. That whatever equilibrium you've reached will inevitably be broken, and that whatever good you're experiencing is innately transient.
But if I've decided to be an unwilling and ungiving participant in the activity of backward-looking, what good excuse is there to deem forward-thinking any better? Backward-looking and forward-thinking -- the two share much in common, anyway. Both come with the utterly vain and perplexing hypotheses of "what could have been" and "what might become"; both are an extension of a much more expansive and complex stream of history which mankind has little influence over; and, most critically, neither timelines are the moments we exist in now.
Thus, if living under the fear for the future or sweet sorrows of the past are no use, then we must simply agree to smile back at our fate today.
When it comes to love, I've decided early on to love fearlessly as if I've never experienced heartbreak. I carry that same attitude in all other realms of life. Even if it's reckless and irrational, even if I might be setting myself up for disappointment or hurt, I would never want to build up a brick wall in the middle of a garden I'm flowering to shield myself against the potential ghosts that might loom over from the past. It is not fair for the endless possibilities the future has in store. It is certainly not fair for the innocence I once held onto so dearly. Innocence, hopefulness, faith in humanity and my commitment to this world -- the reasons I even started dreaming. Then it struck me: the spark of inspiration I've been yearning for all along was the delicate past memories I had covered up with bubble wraps and sealed airtight in my memory box.
The fabric of the past is meant to be blotted with our juvenile behavioral patterns, quirks and idiosyncrasies, naïveté, foolishness, embarrassing mistakes, blindness in love, unconditional trust, betrayals, sorrow, fear, anger, regrets, dilemmas, frustrations, and heartbreaks. By revisiting our very own imperfections ever so often, we keep all past versions of our selves alive with us to this day. These are priceless lessons our young, unrefined selves learned for us at the cost of their tender heart so that we don't need to repeat it. Perhaps that is the very reason I've evaded nostalgia. I was scared to confront what might pop up when I poked at different holes. But when your plot of land is ice-cold and barren, the emotions from the past might be just the torch of fire you needed to borrow from your raw and unfiltered young self to rekindle the flame today.
Nostalgia is an elusive, futile, and wistful emotion by nature.
But if I can take a loan from my numerous young selves’ hard-earned lessons and wisdom, borrow the joys to take inspiration for now, and embrace those who've evoked that whirlwind of a storm of emotions with gratitude, forgiveness, and love, then maybe we can reimagine this awe-inspiring, discomforting emotion. Nostalgia.
That's the real value of nostalgia.