A Tale of Nostalgia

I had a spark to write again, and it felt good. To sit down and feel the ideas pore out through my fingers nearly brought me to tears. Not because it doesn't happen when I'm working, it does, but I wasn't writing anything I want to put out there in the world. No one needs to see this. I'm collecting this feeling of writing something and merely being happy about it. Bottling it for the bad times.A good segway to what I actually want to write about today.You might have listened before to Neil Diamond singing on and on about a sweet girl named Caroline, where he takes the uplifting chorus to remind Caroline that "Good times never seemed so good / I've been inclined / To believe they never would". You don't know that you're living the good old times until they are far enough away that you remember them as the good old times. Some sort of paradox in there, where you also add what Neil is talking about (sorry Neil, I'm interpreting your words here) - no present good times can compare to the good old times until someday they also turn into old times.The thing Neil talks about (I assume) is nostalgia, and nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It happens when we look at our own pasts with blurred lens. The old times sometimes may seem really good because you are feeling nostalgic, looking at it with the knowledge and state of mind you had back then, not knowing what you know now. Better in the past is not always really better, it was good at that moment, when you enjoyed things differently because you were a different person.Nostalgia is powerful. And it leads our older selves - more knowledgeable, often financially more stable - to invest in trying to bring those good feelings back. That's why children's books that were smash hits while Millennials were kids are taking over pop culture right now; Millennials grew up to have the financial means to buy everything related to that nostalgic thing they loved when they were kids and had no money of their own to spend. For this generation in particular, nostalgia is incredibly profitable. The fact that a lot of generational anxieties suppress the joy in present, "adult" accomplishments such as getting a promotion or buying a house, we turn our attentions to the past. The good old times when we were kids and had no worries in the world, when Harry Potter was the best literature ever and you played D&D with your friends every week. But the feelings of the good old times will not come back, not really. And we enter this cycle of trying to recreate a scenario of our lives that simply cannot be because you cannot stop yourself from changing, from learning, from growing. So present times will never compare. And one day, you will look back to today and think "Heck. These were the times."Modern media and entertainment explore and milk nostalgia as much as possible. Because it makes money, very much so. But most nostalgia-based entertainment today fails to hit the spot, as they too are trying to recreate a feeling and a vibe that will not come back - as people change, so does the world. Cowboy Bebop will not be good in a live-action version with CGI. I mean, I could have told them that way ahead (anyone could, really). We are reaching a saturation point in pop culture where we are bombarded with recycled stories over and over again. So much of entertainment is derivative, eating their own tails, trying to copy what they themselves did before. And we are reaching a sort of breaking point where the masses are starting to see how everything is turning into a collage of everything else. Not in the good way at all.I hope someday we look back at these days as the bad old times. You know, the point that we don't want to go back to. One can hope.-Maíra

January 21, 2022

I had a spark to write again, and it felt good. To sit down and feel the ideas pore out through my fingers nearly brought me to tears. Not because it doesn't happen when I'm working, it does, but I wasn't writing anything I want to put out there in the world. No one needs to see this. I'm collecting this feeling of writing something and merely being happy about it. Bottling it for the bad times.

A good segway to what I actually want to write about today.

You might have listened before to Neil Diamond singing on and on about a sweet girl named Caroline, where he takes the uplifting chorus to remind Caroline that "Good times never seemed so good / I've been inclined / To believe they never would". You don't know that you're living the good old times until they are far enough away that you remember them as the good old times. Some sort of paradox in there, where you also add what Neil is talking about (sorry Neil, I'm interpreting your words here) - no present good times can compare to the good old times until someday they also turn into old times.

The thing Neil talks about (I assume) is nostalgia, and nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It happens when we look at our own pasts with blurred lens. The old times sometimes may seem really good because you are feeling nostalgic, looking at it with the knowledge and state of mind you had back then, not knowing what you know now. Better in the past is not always really better, it was good at that moment, when you enjoyed things differently because you were a different person.

Nostalgia is powerful. And it leads our older selves - more knowledgeable, often financially more stable - to invest in trying to bring those good feelings back. That's why children's books that were smash hits while Millennials were kids are taking over pop culture right now; Millennials grew up to have the financial means to buy everything related to that nostalgic thing they loved when they were kids and had no money of their own to spend. For this generation in particular, nostalgia is incredibly profitable. The fact that a lot of generational anxieties suppress the joy in present, "adult" accomplishments such as getting a promotion or buying a house, we turn our attentions to the past. The good old times when we were kids and had no worries in the world, when Harry Potter was the best literature ever and you played D&D with your friends every week.

But the feelings of the good old times will not come back, not really. And we enter this cycle of trying to recreate a scenario of our lives that simply cannot be because you cannot stop yourself from changing, from learning, from growing. So present times will never compare. And one day, you will look back to today and think "Heck. These were the times."

Modern media and entertainment explore and milk nostalgia as much as possible. Because it makes money, very much so. But most nostalgia-based entertainment today fails to hit the spot, as they too are trying to recreate a feeling and a vibe that will not come back - as people change, so does the world. Cowboy Bebop will not be good in a live-action version with CGI. I mean, I could have told them that way ahead (anyone could, really). We are reaching a saturation point in pop culture where we are bombarded with recycled stories over and over again. So much of entertainment is derivative, eating their own tails, trying to copy what they themselves did before. And we are reaching a sort of breaking point where the masses are starting to see how everything is turning into a collage of everything else. Not in the good way at all.

I hope someday we look back at these days as the bad old times. You know, the point that we don't want to go back to. One can hope.

-Maíra

This week's recommendations: