Nostalgia: real or a construct?

[SeeKer]

Sometimes I get the urge to relive certain moments of my life. There are very few and far in between moments I'd like to revisit but, those moments are, as the young ones call it, epic. I have recently noticed that with age I revisit these moments more and more and always with a bit of nostalgia. This has lead me to the question, " What is it about the past that we hold on to?"

 

Remember your old uncle or even grandpa talking about the good old days. The days when people knew how to act, had proper values etc. It is always brightest on that side of the memory storeroom. Life is so much more joyful but is it really? Are our memory banks corrupted and thus coloring our perception of life? My theory is that if you were taken back to that moment you wouldn't enjoy yourself as much as you claim. That if we were to question observers of your life then, they wouldn't remember the appreciative smirk on your face as you got drunk for the first time, snuck into a club with a fake ID or even set fire to a building just to get back at the mean land lord who evicted you!

 

No, they would talk about how you cursed those moments and wished them gone from your life. So, what is it about them that makes you appreciate them decades down the road? Perhaps its the comparison between the past and the present. The present that seems complicated and unsure versus the past that is tried and true. Psychologically are we losing ourselves in what had been, minus the bad parts? Does this make life much more bearable in the present.

 

Throughout history masses of people have had atrocities committed to them and if collectively asked about the time before the evil befell them, they are quick to point out the beauty, happiness and peace they used to experience. Sometimes when I listen to my parents and grandparents talk about Somalia, I hear this nostalgic pull. Do they really believe life was much better during the era of Siyad Barre or even pre-Siyad Barre? See I wouldn't know because all I have to go off is their recollection and at times I am not sure I can trust their minds.

 

So I pose a question, should we trust our nostalgic memory that is a reconstruct of what really happened?

[SeeKer]

Perhaps but then does it merit the question why we do it and if we can exploit this ability? If we as humans can manipulate our memory stores then can one say guard or break into someone's memory stores and tell a different version of their history? Make our enemies into friends or vice versa?

 

I don't mean to jump down the rabbit hole but the possibilities are endless in what one can do once they break into your memory banks don't you think? Plenty of studies show the memory is malleable and can be falsified easily, yet most of us would believe a witness on the stand saying she saw so and so shoot a man especially if collaborated by another witness. What then separates a true memory from a false one, or are all memories a false construct?

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

I loved the 90s and 80s but some moments in life are important u want to continue to remember those precious moments but u only get the chance once. if time traveling actually existed now that would have been something.

[Wadani]

Though i do think that an appreciative smirk was probably missing from our faces while we were living our lives in the past, I don't think it can always be attributed to the all too human tendency to romantisicze past experiences. It may be due to the simple fact that we don't appreciate the good we have until it's gone. As life goes on it often becomes more complicated, mundane and our choices have bigger and more serious consequences, and it's in those moments where we come face to face with lifes toils that we reminisce and become nostalgic for a time when things were objectively much simpler, and happiness, however fleeting, less elusive.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Life is a cycle when we get sick we pray for a better health many go to the mosque, when we get older we are busy to leave something behind for our children (lots of dardaraan). A desire for the past for instance can come if you're mother died when u were a child u deeply want to see her face one more time because its the best time u ever had a mother, people we love are most of the time stuck in the past. And we cant let it go , but as i said life is cycle as u were a child at some point you become a parent and u have some sort of a new family wife kids it heals. But the real desire to forget about the past will never stop because it was the best era of ur life.

[Wadani]

All memories that can have any sort of ideological bearing or can shift power dynamics in any manner are much more amenable to untruths, since the biological imperative of humans for survival subconsciously precludes the ability to remove biases and self/group-interest when recollecting and interpreting past events. That is why there is not such thing as history, but instead competing histories.

[oba hiloowlow]

I miss the 90s and early 2000, Sega, nintendo 64,Gamecube. playing zelda,tekken,supermario 64,Gta and many more. those were the days walahi

[Wadani]

Oba, those were the best times of my life too. Now, I just don't get things anymore. I can't even tell whose a girl or a guy with these skinny jeans and sissified so called men everywhere.

[Wadani]

I was making a side point Apo, about collective memories. I know wat seekers point is. Horta ma booliis dadka loo soo diray baad tahay. Aar naga fuq xabagyahay.

[oba hiloowlow]

wadani yeah. lol apo we know the point my only fear now is im getting old too much to think about i miss those times you just could relax without no prolems playing videogames and playing with your friends outside without nothing to worry about.

[oba hiloowlow]

maybe

[Malika]

Interesting question - I think we shouldn't trust our nostalgic memories to tell stories of our past, I think whilst in that bubble of nostalgia one tends to shut everything else out..I mean, I can tell a thousands of joyfull moments of my childhood and they will bring me a sense of fulfillment about my childhood - even though during those same years my life was also in turmoil somehow...Perhaps in order to survive, I had programmed my mind/memory to focus on those moments of pure joy rather of misery??

 

Will try to figure out more for now - Oh its late- am off to count sheeps over the meadow.

 

ps. Ms Seeker, nice to see you again.

[Chimera]

Nostalgia usually happens in a period of stagnation, regression or alieniation, be it a new environment or losing touch with yourself.

 

That's when your start reconstructing the past and begin romanticising it because of your current situation. A person living in the moment, comfortable in his skin and environment has no time to think about past memories, and when they do surface, they are quickly supressed by present day experiences that will one day become 'nostalgic' memories when you reach that point in your life where you have to look back for joy..

 

This doesn't mean all memories come as a result of the above. Small things like a scent, a clothing style, a film or an old friend transport me back to the past, and these are usually good memories which were genuinely nice "at the time" and not invented by my subconcious. There is no doubt that if I were to watch those said memories unfold from a distance I would feel the exact same way as I do now.

 

One thing I do have to note is the "after-effect" that comes with recollecting that special moment, which naturally will be more wonderful, because you had years to process that particular experience. We remember the weather, the unaged family and friends, the musical interests, the cultural era (i.e 80s/90s) the personal aspirations, etc. Its all sandwhiched into one after-effect, evendo at the time you didn't comprehend all that I mentioned, because it was the life you were living, instead of recollecting.

 

Only when its gone, do you realise what you had, be it family, friends, youth or...........a country.

 

Basically it can be both real or a construct, depending on the individual.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Apophis;898030 wrote:

Maybe nostalgia is nothing more than the fear of death?

 

Maybe could be i think nostalgia is people who do not want to go with time they want the time to stand still for some reason.

[SeeKer]

Wadani and Chimera: I think your thoughts converge on the premise that we don't appreciate whats at hand until its gone, right? If we operated under this premise, I can then surmise that you believe that we inherently can't differentiate what is harmful or beneficial to us without the passage of time. Recollecting what choices you have made in the past, I am sure that at key points of your lives you were at a fork and you had to sacrifice something to follow a path. The decision to follow a certain path was perhaps quick or perhaps took a lot of soul searching. I rather wager that when you look back at that decision and have a nostalgic moments about it you are actually looking back with regret not nostalgia per se. Memories of good times coming to an abrupt end through life choices are regrettably not nostalgic but rather reside in the realm of what ifs, no?

 

XX: People we love are usually stuck in our past because we fail to accept they are hurting us in the present. Its human nature to long for the calming effect of a mother's voice when they have left us alone. It is in our refusal of our present that we look in the past with longing.

 

Malika : Thanks dear, I still stop by to dip my toes in the sanctified waters of SOL, it soothes my soul when the world turns dark I can buy into part of your thinking which is perhaps there is a biological use for our memories stores. Our brains invest a ton of man power to program our short term memory into long term ones. The circuit used to program that memory is complex and only recently been cracked open. I am creature of science with philosophical tendencies, If its to survive then what selection process occurs to allows us to cast some memories as good old days and some as bad?

 

Finally, Aphophis, I would agree with you on the matter that memories serve as a reflection of life lived. It is meant to provide a foundation on which we base our identity as individuals and society. Therefore our nostalgia does have a way of mitigating our present follies. We are making choices and living our lives based on an inaccurate version of the past. A version that was perhaps sold to us by the media or perhaps our own communities. Even looking back at the Civil War of USA, we see how the south through their letters and textbooks overruled the north's account of what really happened (painting themselves in a much favorable light compared to what must have really been back then). Memories are fickle things and are commonly relied on with very little evidence to support them. If I say something long enough it will be true noh? My lineage will accept it as gospel and repeat to their children and soon it will be the eternal truth that they swear upon.

 

"We’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it."......S.J Watson.