Nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a strange phenomenon.  Our tendency to imbue certain music, foods, activities and spaces with meaning and memory is something innately human.  It is a by-product of our love and desire for story and narrative.  It is so powerful an effect that it almost doesn’t require any explanation.  The feeling is well understood by all of us.

The topic came to mind because for the next 21 days of this lockdown, I’m back in my parents’ house - my childhood home.  As I walked in, the nostalgia hit me straight in the face.  It’s almost as if the spaces in this house contain stored memories in their various nooks and crevices which can only be accessed while standing on that hallowed ground.  Naturally, it has brought things back to me that I haven’t thought about in years.

I’m now 27 years old and am a very different person to the one that used to live here.  Yet, as I walk in, I yearn to be that boy once more.  It is, of course, a testament to how my parents crafted my childhood - but it’s more than that.  It’s also a yearning for a time in my life when things were easier and less complicated.  It’s a desire to be free of the trials and tribulations of adulthood.  It’s a cry out for the youthful naivety that doesn’t yet know heartbreak or sorrow or failure.  I find myself becoming nostalgic for the little boy who was convinced he would be the next Proteas wicket-keeper.

While it is a common human experience, knowing that doesn’t diminish its peculiarity.  As far as storing memories externally we have always used photographs, journal entries and now increasingly - social media posts.  But for whatever reason, these memories seem two-dimensional compared to the all-encompassing feeling of nostalgia.  A photograph pales in comparison to the surround-sound, VR-enabled, Disney-world immersion of a nostalgic experience.

I must confess that I find that ‘feeling’ quite addictive.  My memory has never been a strong point.  I tend to forget things very easily, much to the amusement and frustration of my friends and family.  So the childhood that I yearn to return to sometimes, is always out of my reach.  I’m hanging onto random anecdotes that have stuck around by hook or by crook - and even then, I see them in 240p resolution.  Nostalgia gives me those memories back in a way that I find incredibly alluring.  It is addictive.

Addiction.  That scary word.  As with all things, balance is important here.  It is very easy to find yourself living for those moments of nostalgia because it’s often easier to revel in those flashbacks than deal with the reality in front of you today.  As a form of escapism, it’s hard to beat.  Nostalgia doesn’t ask questions, it doesn’t send you debit orders, it doesn’t talk back, it doesn’t punch you in the mouth, it doesn’t cheat on you, it doesn’t betray your trust.  Oh no.  It delivers Instagram-filtered memories of a time when life was easy and things were going your way.

A little bit of escapism is good.  Too much of it is detrimental.  When you are living for that feeling you are denigrating your current experience of life and feeding your negative self-talk.  Because once that rose-coloured rear-view mirror fades away it leaves you with questions like: Why can’t I do that anymore?  Why did that person leave?  How did I lose that aspect of myself?  I wish things were easier.  I miss those days.  etc. etc.  You know the self-talk I’m referring to.

The moment we find ourselves looking to our past like this, we lose the ability to imagine a future that is even better than what we remember.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  It’s perhaps unrealistic to expect the unreserved freedom of childhood during adult life.  And that I’ll concede.  There is a certain level of acceptance and surrender that comes with a couple of decades under (and over) our belt.  We learn that the world is not filled entirely with butterflies and rainbows.  We learn that the movies don’t actually portray reality.  We learn that adults actually don’t have a clue.  We learn that life is hard.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t craft a better life for ourselves than what we have today.  It won’t resemble the childhood dream that we cherished or the naive freedom that we felt.  It will be different in a good way.  It will contain the responsibility, hard work and resilience required to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.  It’s a hard-fought life - battling psychological demons, the cruel twists of fate and a multitude of obstacles standing in your way.  It’s more sophisticated and nuanced than your childlike self could ever have imagined.

We learn to appreciate different aspects of life, things we never thought we would.  We learn to manage our expectations and understand our unique strengths and weaknesses.  We give up on dreams imposed on us by our peers and we learn to focus on those unique things that make us happy, regardless of how weird or insignificant they may look to others.  We stop worrying so much about being ‘cool’ or ‘popular’.

It’s a wonderful transition in life and one that we should not see as a loss.

I’m not calling for us to ignore the nostalgia of our past.  I couldn’t bear to make that pronouncement.  But I am calling for balance.  I’m calling for a fight against the addiction and the nihilism that follows.

It brings to mind that awful cliche: we need to ‘be present’.

The rear-view mirror is useful to glance at once in a while, but we actually need to keep our eyes on the road.  There is beauty and wonder to be found when we look forward with anticipation.  There are abundant opportunities for casual magic in the every-day slog of adult life. 

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to create nostalgia for your future self by what you do today.  

I’m off to create nostalgia for 80-year old Barry.  

I’m off to create a life better than 14-year old Barry could ever have imagined.

Join me.