Nostalgia and Self-Deception (2Fer #7)

“Remember the good old days? When things were fun, new, and interesting? Doesn’t everyone wish that they can turn back time, back to when things were better?” There’s a name for this kind of thinking— nostalgia. A blast from the past, something to take you out of the moment and back into the better days. Except, the days aren’t better. They might feel better, but that doesn’t make them actually better. The days now past, the days that have long since ended— they aren’t coming back. No amount of wishing will bring them back. Obsessing over it won’t help. In fact, it will only hurt, because the more one thinks about it, the more one yearns for those old days, the more they romanticize it, make it better than it was. It takes one out of the real world, and it stops them from moving forwards. The simple truth of the matter is that nostalgia, in the long run, is a negative emotion that makes people invest in and yearn for a past that never really happened, and takes them away from their present day life.

The good old days, as one might feel inclined to refer to them as, aren’t really so good after all. It’s almost invariably a fact. Something in the human mind forces them to see the past as better than the present, simply because the harsh now is where they’re living, so those fun times they remember must be preferable. Even when those days never even really happened. Take it from someone who actually experienced this firsthand. In her article criticizing the obsession with nostalgia, Bryony Gordon of The Telegraph writes, “…the segment where Chris Evans met Jeremy Clarkson came on. This was bad, because it made me feel nostalgic for Top Gear - which is odd, given I’ve never really watched it and it hasn’t actually gone away.” It should strike most as odd that someone could become nostalgic for a show that they never even really followed. Yet this happens all the time, to so many people. Someone reminds them of a show that was around when they were younger, and suddenly they enter the nostalgic state of reminiscing and missing, even though they only saw the show once or twice. Not only that, but like with Gordon, they refuse to acknowledge anything that seems like a “replacement.” They fail to look forwards and give new things a chance, because the only thing that they possibly could want is to return to the old version, the “better,” or rather, fantasized version of it.

When nostalgia seriously becomes a problem, however, is when it interferes with the present. This idea of the past always being better makes people believe that they absolutely must return to this better version, and that nothing can get in the way of that. They invest themselves in a glorified version of what’s happened, and refuse to see it as it really was. In an article written on psychology today by Neel Burton, M.D., he states that “If overindulged, nostalgia can give rise to a utopia that never existed and can never exist, but that is pursued at all costs, sapping all life and joy and potential from the present.” Instead of paying any attention to the future, these people try to live in the past. Happiness and success in life can only be found if someone is living in the present, looking forwards to what’s yet to come. Trapping oneself in a cycle of yearning for something that exists no longer will never result in joy or prosperity. It’s comparable to regret, wishing that you could go back in time, except instead of just wishing to change something, they wish to spend all their time there. It’s commonplace to hear talk about how moving on from past mistakes is good, since it’s unhealthy to think so much of them. So it should follow, then, that it would also be just as unhealthy— if not more— to spend so much time thinking about things, wishing to return to them. There will never be a way to return to those days, and the final result of the indulgence in nostalgia can only result in that realization. From that realization, sadness will inevitably come.

At the end of the day, no one can return to things, whether it would be good to or not. Regardless of if the past was so great or not, which it most likely was not, it can’t happen. So instead of spending so much wishing to go back to what they miss, they should let go. See the world for what it is now, and find things that can make them happy today. Not everything great is gone, just like how not everything bad happens in the present day. The past will always seem appealing if things are going poorly; people always miss what they no longer have. No person can ever travel backwards in time for these things. But no matter what, everyone travels forwards in time.

Work Cited:

• Gordon, Bryony. "Why nostalgia is bad for your health." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 16 June 2015. Web. 26 Apr. 2017. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/

11675360/Why-nostalgia-is-bad-for-your-health.html>.

• Burton, Neel. "The Meaning of Nostalgia." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 27 Nov. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/

201411/the-meaning-nostalgia>.