Nostalgia is an overly sentimental yearning for some historical time in our lives, usually defined by an irrecoverable and significant emotional experience. Moments we seek to relive might include the way we felt when we first experienced love, the fun and the camaraderie we had with a childhood best friend or the joy of endless days lying ahead of us during a favourite summer holiday.
And it works, sort of. When we reminisce we experience some of the feelings we yearn to recapture. However, when we want to go back more than we want to be in the present, the feelings are tarnished with melancholy. The sombre reality that we can’t go back, that we will never live through those moments again dilutes the pleasure of the experience we crave and we’re left feeling empty. Nostalgia can be insidious if misused.
Going back to the past in an attempt to relive our most glorious moments has another side effect that we need to be aware of if we rely on them too heavily. It trains us to believe that our best experiences are behind us. Nostalgia subtly spirits us away from the present and delivers us to long lost kisses, heroic sporting achievements, or our youth when we were dazzlingly beautiful. And in doing so the melancholy of elusive pasts harden our emotions to experiencing the present as another extraordinary life moment.
Our memories of the past are lies
Those summer holidays when the days would never end weren’t as extraordinary when we were living in them. There were moments of boredom, times of anxiety, and stretches of time when we wished we were somewhere else; similar to our lives here, in the present. Our minds edit our memories to help us forget the mundane, the frightening and the traumatic. 4 weeks of a summer holiday might, 20 years later, end up being nothing more than a 5 or 6 meaningful moments with imperfect images carefully stored in our minds for posterity. The reality of those 4 weeks is a truth we might never be able to conjure up again. But nostalgia isn’t bothered with truth, it is there to remind us of the extraordinary and to fade-out the everyday.
Nostalgia as an illness
In 1688 Johannes Hofer coined the term nostalgia in his medical dissertation. Nostos from the Greek for homecoming and algos from the Greek for pain. The disease is characterised by fatigue, indolence, melancholy and an overwhelming longing for a different time and place.
The English – homesickness, is a loan translation from the term nostalgia. Sir Joseph Banks used the term in his journal during his first voyage with Captain Cook. In his journal he stated that some of the sailors were pretty far gone with their longing for home, and that the ship’s physician had classified their condition as nostalgia.
It is also interesting to note that during the 30 Years War six soldiers were discharged from the Spanish Army. They were suffering from el mal de corazón, or the ailment of the heart, which shared all the symptoms of nostalgia. Nostalgia, which should come as no surprise, was particularly prevalent amongst soldiers.
Our memories are a refuge when our reality becomes unbearable. Our memories of home, of better times become our consolations when times are dark. And in this truth lies the answer to how we should use nostalgia.
Nostalgia as treatment
We should use nostalgia as a salve for the traumatic realities of our present. Nostalgia reminds us that we have lived through extraordinary and joyous episodes. And we should remember this as we travel through our more torrid moments.
There’s a reason our memory relinquishes its hold of the more mundane or challenging times from our past. It’s so that we are left with treasures; the many moments that remind us that our lives were and still are extraordinary. And we should use those treasures to help us weather whatever challenges we face today.
When you’re feeling down or when the world becomes too much, go seek brighter times in your summer holidays and your first loves. But remember, those are just there to remind us not to give up hope. Tough times will inevitably be replaced by unimaginable moments of wonder. And with our nostalgia-balm, we need to come back to this moment and be present, knowing that the best is yet to come we just need to endure.