NOSTALGIA, A TOOL FOR THE FUTURE

“A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past” (“Nostalgia.” Oxford)

Abstract

It seems as though; as we go about our daily routine in which we are always moving forward, we are occasionally subject to reflect on the past. Time, is very much related, as a measurement that can either be positively accurate or harmfully misleading. We associate “the good old days” with a certain place and time, which is obviously labeled by a date and occasionally by a period. This era or as more romantically described in French: époque, can either be defined academically as history or as a personal time in our lives that has been marked by a relatively signif-icant change. Certain sensory factors can play host to a more intuitive recollection of the past, such as smell, touch, and hearing-- more directly then sight or taste. That isn’t to say that a whole image in which a few of these factors are present cannot be constructed. In fact the most sublime and surprising nostalgic experiences are those felt with as much variation as possible, even beyond rudimentary sensory response. Something bigger is created that flashes through your conscious.

Can we be nostalgic for an era or place in time that we didn’t live through or weren’t present for? I have had the experience in which I’ve gained an affinity for the culture and its mentality of a certain time period and want to have lived through it. Based on the type of music I like , I have somehow assumed that it was better then what we have in the present. I always tell myself that I should have been born fifteen years earlier. Obviously recorded history tends, be it a primary or secondary source, to glorify though it is my only connection to this era. Is my romantic perception false or can it be justified? There is no way of know-

only connection to this era. Is my romantic perception false or can it be justified? There is no way of know-ing. This is where the melancholic facet of nostalgia has a personal resonance. What did I miss out on, this is even harder to accept when realizing that some of these places in time occurred in my lifetime and were even presented to me as options which I did not take. Even though these are irrational thoughts, they affect me and cause a certain need to recreate or reestablish the moment. This is also applicable to moments that I have experienced. You don’t know what you’ve got till its gone, this cliché is so true that saying it ‘so true’ is a cliché on itself. The recreation is never what the original was, it might be the same in form and in prac-ticality but the experience will never be the same. In fact it is possible to ruin the original moment by doing this. I have to accept the music for what it is and enjoy it in a new context or maybe live in the nostalgia but not be consumed by it.

Is nostalgia a good or bad thing, to define it this way might be to blunt but the question is relevant. Many see it as a way of detaching themselves from the present just as they dream and fantasizes about the future but the stark contrast with reality can hurt. It might also be perceived as a good thing to uplift spirits but also in resolving old issues. In that case, the good comes after the struggle. For me struggle and melan-choly are romantic and feelings I like to sink myself into from time to time, as it is a reflection of my most authentic sensibility. At the same time, it is quite self-indulgent to make such a claim. Struggle can have good outcomes, the truth becomes clearer and all the junk around it is eliminated. There is no question that we suffer and gain from selective memory and that we tend to remember the extreme situations in our lives rather then the good over the bad or visa versa. In practicality, nostalgia is a detriment but for our piece of mind it is necessary and unavoidable. That not stay, we should live in the past but we should allow these reflections to us move forwards or enjoy a moment for it momentary purpose. The real question is if viewing moments in the past as only a step in a larger development for what is to come is always about living for the future and never in the moment?

Introduction

Is nostalgia only a function of recalling the past or is it also as a tool to determine and understand the future? Remising about what has come before in its most general form stays in the past but is there a way in which we can utilize the most beautiful and the most horrific memories of our past to move into the un-known that is to come? Nostalgia in its most practical manifestation seems to be a reflection of social inter-action. On this almost sociological level it is possible to understand that as humans we tend to focus on the best moments in the past when we are lonely hence melancholy but also when we try to correct our mistakes in the actuality of close to perfect social cohesion. Childhood remains the most direct time from which we are nostalgic, a time when everything appears to be new with unimaginable sublime grandeur. Due to the fact that is the time in our life in which uninhibited exploration and learning occur, imaginations run wild similar to sort of creative hallucination, our most vivid sensory based memories are glorified and longed for in latter periods of live. How does nostalgia effect everyday life? The recollections that happen on a daily basis can be so passive that we don’t even realize that they exist but somehow this is how we are able to deal with and utilize nostalgia, to keep going and not be held back, can be understood.

Essay

Social interaction is our most fundamental attribute as humans; we do not function without com-munication. that isn’t to say that we don’t mange to destroy relationships and take away this basic necessity. Memory tends to either be in relation to an image in space or of something some one said or did. In the same sense, nostalgia generally occurs during solitude. Excluding the exceptions, we are rarely able to be involved in our own thoughts when in a social situations due to self-imposed constraints. The need to meet

communicative standards requires us to think outwardly, be vocal and to be present in conversation or in any other interaction. In contrast, when alone, we are not required to be communicative, so the same function in which we hold conversations turns inward. Primarily we analyze what has occurred in social interactions in recent history but then we go deeper to see how it has affected us. One outcome of this process is nostalgia, as we either long for missing communication, for certain individuals, or for the context in which this interac-tion occurred. As a way of detaching from pain or the shame of loneliness, we recreate a false reality in the past, in which we were fulfilled. As an implementation of something missing, the same recreation can occur for any other animate or inanimate object.

“Nostalgia is very often a situation in which an isolated person strategically trick themselves into feeling that they still belong in a community and have a social life.” (Etcheberry) For Ddiddue Etcheberry, by reflecting on the past seven years of his studies away for home, he becomes nostalgic for his previous life in his native Basque country. It is more a question of mentality then social interaction though it remains important. When with old friends, he is only able to communicate about the past but not about what has oc-curred while they were apart due to the fact that his life is so much different then theirs. The main difference being that they stayed in the area. Clinical nostalgia is defined as a symptom of homesickness or mal du pays (“Nostalgia.” Wikipedia). His mal du pays is based primarily on the fact that he grew up in this area and that his family is still there, so it remains social. He is also nostalgic for his culture as it manifests itself as mentality, certain elements that are missing in his life away from home. He identifies the visceral experience in these recollections as his melancholy but believes that it good to be in that state so that important values become clear and everything else is eliminated, a way of find his truth. There is a practical resolution to his mal du pays, which comes as direct reference to Basque cultural and most likely social norms, where those who leave must come back with knowledge to better their native land. This seems to be a heavy burden but he is ready to fulfill it.

Can we really associate the need to attain an intangible period of social cohesion during the reality of loneliness or is it just that nostalgia provides a similar sentiment in which social loneliness manifest itself? Loneliness is the direct negation of gregarity, so naturally we are inclined to fill a void with memory but is that a fundamental of nostalgia? Context and specific situations can only tell but what is certain is that the feeling of loneliness can easily and readily by associated with nostalgia, weather or not they are the same is unknown. It is difficult to connect such sentiments as regret and the need to correct the past with nostalgia, which remains purely a moment in the past. The ying and the yang of this contradictions, taking into play the battle between the adoration and the scorn of the past, brings up the question of resolving past issues.

The social implication of nostalgia is very much connected to culture. For the poets during romanti-cism, nostalgia was the distance, even the falsification of the present, in their case the on slot of modernity and urbanization. (Goodman) The romantics were turning to the past in the face of all the negativity that came with industrialization; they wanted to recapture the lost attention to nature. Gustav Mahler, one of the composers that straddled the barrier between the stylistic musical movements of late romanticism and mo-dernity, believed that if the world were to end or if nature were to be completely destroyed, his music could tell it’s story. (Gustav) Though, technically his work was more modern in tonality and in the instruments he used but his themes remained romantic. Culture is collectively proletariat in nature weather it be traditional or progressive in a certain time and place. So, is nostalgia traditional? In some ways for the romantics, yes, but if you were to ask them if nostalgia could be used to move forward, they’d have to agree. For them it would act as a copping mechanism in which the developments in late 18th through 19th century society could be accepted. There is no doubt that nuanced rather then radical changes are more effective. So it might be that nostalgia, not only allows us to resolve old issues but also allows us to sustain during hard or transi-tory periods.

“Nostalgia is one of the fundamental capacities of man, and maybe even the foundation of romance as we have come to utilize it in all of our relationships to place each other. It is closely related and largely interwoven with empathy. Neuroscience has tied it into the evolutionary explanations for our transition from nomadic to stationary groups: from the forager to the “civilizer”. (Scheider) Seeing nostalgia in a more posi-tive light, Christian Scheider, a philosophy student at Bard College in New York, claims that it is the basis for all romance and the reason for our stability. In this sense, it can be expressed as a tool for the future as it forced us into civilization. How is it related to empathy? Is it because by experience certain things, we are then somehow more aware of what others might be going or who have had similar experiences? If so, nos-talgia is no longer something entirely reserved for solitude, even as an after though this empathy is still part of ones nostalgic recollection.

For me the social relation to nostalgia is an important facet of this phenomenon but isn’t the only one. The whole image that is created during my recollections is primarily sensory based but if I go further I can begin to see the interactions with others. Could this be some sort of indication that I am more introvert and that those who are extrovert see social interaction first? Do extroverts have time to be nostalgic? There are obviously times in which I am ashamed, annoyed, or proud of past social situations but I do not directly associate them with nostalgia automatically. I am also convinced that all memories are socially charger but primarily my recreations of the past are not associated with interaction; it is only part of a whole picture. In the example given in the abstract, I explain that my instinctual or, dare I say it, lucid recollection of my grandmother’s house comes from early childhood. At first I see a semi translucent glass door, similar to the image on the cover, but then I see my grandmother opening up a secret cupboard at the end of the dinning room full of toys dating back to the nineteen fifties. This social interaction exudes warmth and love. I also have the recollection of being scolded for crawling under her skirt, which is less nostalgic not because it is negative but because there is nothing sensory or visceral about it. Weather it is warm and beautiful or

melancholic doesn’t matter but a differentiation needs to be made with it being positive or negative. I am also admittedly nostalgic for the times in which I am the most socially acceptable but also when I was part of a community. Childhood memories are the most honest and intense, it is a time when everything is new and needs to be learned. The reason that our nostalgia tends to focus on early childhood rather then adulthood is due to the grandeur of everything that we hadn’t experienced before. Childhood worries, if not non-existence, are not comparable to those present in later years, most of our necessities and desires are provided for by caregivers. It is important to reiterate the time that is being mentioned is early childhood, once we enter school; the social context is completely changed though most of the attributes, such a uninhibited curiosity, still remain. During childhood, everything is still developing including sensory associations. The sweetness of tasting sugar for the first time is the best it’ll ever be and music will never sound as good as it did the first time you heard it, recollections of this time in our lives holdfast to a certain beauty and satisfaction that is usual hard to reestablish. Nostalgia is the closest thing to recreating these primal and pure moments. Our parents or guardians provide us with the first example of what we are hoping to become. As it is in our nature to always look to the future, we try to emulate what the adults around us do. According to Heideggerian believe, we never work for the past or the present, we are constantly building up for the future. The question of whether or not nostalgia is the only time in which we are free from this sort of samsara is hard to answer, but in childhood those moments that make for our nostalgia later seem to be plausible in contrast to the need for constant growth. Our role models provide us with the only example of what it is to be correct or even just how to function in the world. In western culture we identify and label those who are ‘educated’ as those who have been taught good manners and morals but this is more a reflection of parents then the individuals being judged. It is even said that when we are looking for love or are attracted to

some-one; we find similarities with our parents. for girls; their fathers and for boys; their mothers. Our par-ents create an image that you expect everyone else to resemble, but it’s a lie. (Etcheberry) This is an interest-ing observation, as if to say that our parents, no matter what advice they give us, cannot prepare us for the realities of the world once we leave the so-called nest. Even if the eventual nervousity of being out on our own is expressed over and over again in popular culture, we cannot begin to imagine the shock that occurs, forget our parent’s preparation. This happens as early as elementary school, when we are thrown together with many other up brings. This is also why our nostalgic recollections of school are less powerful then early ‘encadre’ childhood.

Context is everything and space can sometime be clearer then time. Marcel Proust gives the example of the stone on St. Marks Square in Venice. As a child he remembers stepping on a particular stone, when he returned years latter as an adults he step on the stone and all his recollections of that time returned. (Liuk-konen) In this highly dramatic case, the thing that prompted his nostalgia was not an object or social interac-tions but the setting. We are all very prone to such encounters. for me, stepping into an old building in The Netherlands, though I cannot identity what it is specifically in terms of materials or objects, I am directly re-minded of my grandmother’s house. In some situations I have tried to find out what it is on a practical level. In some cases I succeed, the cracked marble on the floor combined with the wallpaper give off a certain odor. Are there nostalgic moments that are more unexplainably subconscious and some that are clearer and identifiable?

“Going back to my boarding school in Bruges after 4 years, I experienced nostalgia. They remodeled our late 19th century dormitories but kept some vestiges. It still looked and smelled like my old school but yet it had a different feel. I had been very happy in this school, it was a cool ambiance with caring teachers, mischievous fellow students, and good intellectual stimulation. I stayed there for 2 weeks and was able to

accept the new ambiance of this ‘maison d’acceuil’. After all, the people there were still the same, they just had different jobs. The cooking was the same and the fresh atmosphere of the chapel was intact. I guess I wasn’t ready for adult life yet, I was nostalgic for a carefree romantic times in the sense of no commitment, just dreaming for the future. (de Cock) Even with the smallest of changes our whole nostalgic image cre-ated during childhood can be destroyed. Returning to a place in our youth can never be the same as it was back then; knowledge and experiencing other places shape us and change our perspective. We are not the same people as we were in the time we try to remember and ultimately recreate. “C’est le souvenir de mo-ments heureux qu’on ne retrouvera plus” It’s the memory of happy moments that we can never find again (de Cock). As tragic and disappointing as it might sound, the truth is that nostalgia can only be relived in the moment of recollection as a memory and not as an actuality.

Childhood can also be marked by confusion in the same obliviousness as the grandeur of experienc-ing completely new things. Can this also be nostalgia or is melancholy only experienced after the fact, in the moment of recollection? We are all consciously or subconsciously nostalgic for ignorance. There are many time, when I find myself in the face of adversity or hardship, that I recall moments in which these issues where not even conceivable but then the stress of time brings me back to the present by realizing that I am more capable now than I was then. After the fact, in recalling the moments of hardship in which I fall into nostalgic detachment, I am sure of being better for the experience. How can nostalgia be applicable in the present? Nostalgia has no judgment of time, meaning that one can be nostalgic for something that occurred 2 minutes ago or 20 years ago. Obviously, artist and other cre-ative professional use this phenomenon to solidify their ideas but in practice does there work always refer to a longing for the past? For our sanity, it is important to know what remains in our memory that is cause for an alter perception of dissatisfaction in the present. That is to say, what’s holding us back? Our need to attain

something beautiful or fascinating for the past has to be accepted but then resolved in terms of seeing how it can be useful in the present or left in memory for that purpose only. It can be difficult to realize that nothing of the sort or the way in which it is glorified will ever match up. We tend to alter the past, so our memory cannot match up to the original moment as well, the more time goes by the more we choose the best and leave out the worst. Listening to music from a certain period in another context provides so much contrast that the original period is though of as being so much better then it really was. We must use nostalgia as tool to either detach ourselves, like a drug, or enjoy it for its momentary value. We can also be exited and curious for the prospect of a new context. Maybe playing a certain type of music in a different situation will create something ultimate better. That is the basis for most creative pursuit. Its close to impossible to reach sublim-ity, we need reference to the past but we can mix and match to develop something new.

It would be nice to view nostalgia as something purely romantic and as powerful as Proust describes it but reality dictates that there is more involved. We are conscious beings and memory is hard to avoid, though we occasionally succeed to shut out the bad. Since nostalgia usually refers to moments of ecstasy it is almost pointless to claim that we can shut it out. As a tool for the future, we need to accept its position in time and be open to the possibility that a new context can be good too, weather or not it stay true to the original experience or not. In practicality, what might be interesting to investigate Is weather or not we can control our nostalgia, turn it on and off when ever need. Or is this a contradiction to the notion of nostalgia itself as it can be something so lucid and unexpected. If we are able to control it, then we loose its power and effectiveness. As is evident in both childhood and in social situations nostalgia is maybe one of our feelings that is the most sentimental and honest but in the same sense brutal.

Works Referenced

de Cock, Dominique. Personal interview. 4 July 2010

Etcheberry, Ddiddue. Personal interview. 3 July 2010

Goodman, Kevis. “Romantic poetry and the science of nostalgia.” The Cambridge Companion to British Romantic Poetry. Eds. James Chandler and Maureen N. McLane. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Cambridge Collections Online. Cambridge University Press. 6 July 2010

“Gustav Mahler.” International Gustav Mahler Society Vienna. 7 July 2010. < http://www.gustav-mahler.org/english/>

Liukkonen, Petri. and Aril Pesonen. “Marcel (Valentin-Louis-George-Eugene) Proust (1871-1922).” Books and Writers. 5 July 2010. < http://kirjasto.sci.fi/proust.htm>

“Nostalgia.” Oxford Dictionary. Oxford, 2010

“Nostalgia.” Wikipedia. 7 July 2010. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia>

Scheider, Christian. Personal interview. 3 July 2010

ADRIAN MADLENER / 2010