I recently completed and submitted a novel set in the late 1970s, my teen years. Writing it brought back the memories of all the joys and torments of my adolescence. It’s funny, at 60 I am happily married, financially secure, and physically active. I’m living the life that I fantasized about during my working years. And yet, when I hear a song on a SiriusXM 70s radio station that I haven’t heard in more than 40 years, I find myself longing for a time when I sometimes struggled to find a decent song on FM radio!
Loved this piece! One of the strange things about the (seemingly) increased pace of change is that I find myself being nostalgic about times that actually weren't that long ago!
Like...remember when people waiting in public places weren't always glued to their phones and you could more easily strike up a chat? Remember when you could generally trust photos and videos you saw without being suspicious that everything was a deep fake? Remember when we used to know how to navigate to places without relying on GPS? Remember the fun of going out to rent a movie?
I suspect that this will only accelerate in the next few years, especially in the age of AI...things are going to get weird, and we'll be nostalgic for the comparatively normal era of the early 2020's!
Oh, exactly! I miss those phone booths too, and fishing a dime out of my pocket to make a call. Young people have things harder in so many ways. The things I worried about--an irascibly patriarchal Freudian shrink, anorexia, bulimia, and Jesus freaks--are nothing compared to gender ideologies, poor trans teenagers stuffed with Lupron and cross-sex hormones (not to mention the awful surgeries, not to mention guns, climate change, wars, Trump.)
And I haven't even gotten to DEI and so-called anti-racism.
Could use a time machine. Bingewatching Outlander will have to do for now.
You speak the truth so beautifully, I am so often brought to tears when l read your season. ♥️. This last one on nostalgia really got to me and took me on an amazing trip down memory lane!
We (baby boomers) probably were the luckiest generation ever, as we could do anything freely and travel to most places around the world without thinking twice. I grew up in France, spent my first weekend ever in America at the original Woodstock Festival of 1969, worked as a safari guide in the Amazon rain forest of Colombia for a year, spent five years in Rio de Janeiro in the early seventies, and have lived in New York City since 1977. I produced a documentary in Alaska on the Exxon Valdez spill, became an actor at 40 who worked for 4 months in a miniseries that was shot in 15 locations around mainland China, and many other things in various states of the USA or other countries around the world. When I was 32, I became a pioneer of cable television production in NYC and now, at the age of 76, I got a book published in England on a pioneer figure of rock and roll music (Stones, Yardbirds, etc.). All of this I chose to do, and enjoyed doing it as I went along. Like many of my friends, I was hoping that my generation would leave a better world to live in to those who follow us, but I am forced to admit that, for as much as we took and enjoyed, we have failed to leave a cleaner and more peaceful environment to those who are taking charge now. I always thought that we could defeat the notion that "History repeats itself", but I guess that every generation has to make their own mistakes to prove to themselves that they can manage them. For all I know, maybe AI will take over and fix it for them.
Wearing my amateur psychology "white coat," here are three thoughts.
The older one becomes, the more one "lives" in the past. One needs to be older to fully appreciate Faulkner's thought: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
A reason for nostalgia is to "go home." It fulfils a deep psychological need, which can be beneficial or harmful (eg, staying with an abusive spouse, because this was the type of home you were brought up in).
Nostalgia helps people deal with personal issues that they have tried to bury but realize they are better if faced. A form of sugar coating a (perhaps) painful memory.
The psychologist below writes about going back to a physical home where one grew up in, but it could be applied to home in the much broader sense.
I keep remembering my early years when I had 5 or 6 friends on my block and we could play ball in the street or an alley on any day. Or we could walk over and into each other's houses for connection.
I recently completed and submitted a novel set in the late 1970s, my teen years. Writing it brought back the memories of all the joys and torments of my adolescence. It’s funny, at 60 I am happily married, financially secure, and physically active. I’m living the life that I fantasized about during my working years. And yet, when I hear a song on a SiriusXM 70s radio station that I haven’t heard in more than 40 years, I find myself longing for a time when I sometimes struggled to find a decent song on FM radio!
Loved this piece! One of the strange things about the (seemingly) increased pace of change is that I find myself being nostalgic about times that actually weren't that long ago!
Like...remember when people waiting in public places weren't always glued to their phones and you could more easily strike up a chat? Remember when you could generally trust photos and videos you saw without being suspicious that everything was a deep fake? Remember when we used to know how to navigate to places without relying on GPS? Remember the fun of going out to rent a movie?
I suspect that this will only accelerate in the next few years, especially in the age of AI...things are going to get weird, and we'll be nostalgic for the comparatively normal era of the early 2020's!
That was fun...(o:
Oh, exactly! I miss those phone booths too, and fishing a dime out of my pocket to make a call. Young people have things harder in so many ways. The things I worried about--an irascibly patriarchal Freudian shrink, anorexia, bulimia, and Jesus freaks--are nothing compared to gender ideologies, poor trans teenagers stuffed with Lupron and cross-sex hormones (not to mention the awful surgeries, not to mention guns, climate change, wars, Trump.)
And I haven't even gotten to DEI and so-called anti-racism.
Could use a time machine. Bingewatching Outlander will have to do for now.
“ when I read your essays “
You speak the truth so beautifully, I am so often brought to tears when l read your season. ♥️. This last one on nostalgia really got to me and took me on an amazing trip down memory lane!
What a long strange trip it's been ...
We (baby boomers) probably were the luckiest generation ever, as we could do anything freely and travel to most places around the world without thinking twice. I grew up in France, spent my first weekend ever in America at the original Woodstock Festival of 1969, worked as a safari guide in the Amazon rain forest of Colombia for a year, spent five years in Rio de Janeiro in the early seventies, and have lived in New York City since 1977. I produced a documentary in Alaska on the Exxon Valdez spill, became an actor at 40 who worked for 4 months in a miniseries that was shot in 15 locations around mainland China, and many other things in various states of the USA or other countries around the world. When I was 32, I became a pioneer of cable television production in NYC and now, at the age of 76, I got a book published in England on a pioneer figure of rock and roll music (Stones, Yardbirds, etc.). All of this I chose to do, and enjoyed doing it as I went along. Like many of my friends, I was hoping that my generation would leave a better world to live in to those who follow us, but I am forced to admit that, for as much as we took and enjoyed, we have failed to leave a cleaner and more peaceful environment to those who are taking charge now. I always thought that we could defeat the notion that "History repeats itself", but I guess that every generation has to make their own mistakes to prove to themselves that they can manage them. For all I know, maybe AI will take over and fix it for them.
Wearing my amateur psychology "white coat," here are three thoughts.
The older one becomes, the more one "lives" in the past. One needs to be older to fully appreciate Faulkner's thought: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
A reason for nostalgia is to "go home." It fulfils a deep psychological need, which can be beneficial or harmful (eg, staying with an abusive spouse, because this was the type of home you were brought up in).
Nostalgia helps people deal with personal issues that they have tried to bury but realize they are better if faced. A form of sugar coating a (perhaps) painful memory.
The psychologist below writes about going back to a physical home where one grew up in, but it could be applied to home in the much broader sense.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/returning-home/201103/you-can-go-home-again-and-maybe-you-should
wow. perfect
You nailed it. cousin.
I keep remembering my early years when I had 5 or 6 friends on my block and we could play ball in the street or an alley on any day. Or we could walk over and into each other's houses for connection.