Learn from the wisdom of one of the best novelists of the 20th century.
There is a phrase that comes to my mind every time I feel nostalgia and rescues me.
It is a phrase inscribed at the beginning of the great novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
Kundera seems to shout it to me from beyond, to pull me out of that haunting that usually precedes the thought “any past was better”.
The sentence.
“The twilight of disappearance bathes everything with the magic of nostalgia; everything, including the guillotine.” — Milan Kundera.
With this phrase, Milan Kundera plays with Nietzsche’s theory of the eternal return.
Nietzsche’s theory is based on the fact that everything is circular, and history constantly repeats itself.
But even though life is cyclical, Milan Kundera reminds us that it is also linear: you cannot live yesterday twice.
And from that reality, nostalgia is born, the thought that any past was better.
Transience makes us idealize the past.
“How is it possible to condemn something that is fleeting?” — Milan Kundera.
Because life is linear, nothing you have experienced will repeat like you experienced it the first time. And that fleetingness attenuates the bad moments in the same way that it romanticizes the good moments lived.
Bad moments: Since you don’t have to repeat your life forever (as the theory of eternal return suggests), you tend to skip the bad when you feel nostalgic for something to fully savor the good of a specific season, for example, your youth.
And that is romanticizing the past.
Romanticizing the past is a defense mechanism.
Like the ostrich that hides its head in the ground when it is afraid, human beings bury their heads in the past to avoid thinking about an uncertain future that terrifies them or to distract themselves from a present that bores or torments them.
When I romanticize the past, I feel like an adult who tries to return to his mother’s womb, not to take responsibility for his present, much less for his future.
The first symptom is nostalgia because it feels good, and that pleasant sensation is a bit like going back to the womb.
How to avoid letting yourself be hypnotized by nostalgia.
“What would you do, if you had the power to dream every night any dream you wanted to dream, and you could alter your sense of time and sleep say, 75 years of subjective time in 8 hours of sleep?” — Alan Watts.
This famous thought by Watts gives us the key.
Let’s assume that Nietzche’s idea of eternal return makes sense. And now let’s mix it with Alan Watts’ question.
Imagine that every night, you could relive your entire life.
But unlike Watts’ proposal, you could not change anything about your life.
Then, every night you have left to live, you will relive that season you are nostalgic for as it was at some point in your dream.
And since repetition takes away the fleeting component of your memory, the romanticism and nostalgia would end.
You would end up so bored of reliving your whole life every night that you wouldn’t waste time thinking about it during the day.
And you know what you would long for? To fully live your present and understand what the future holds because it is unknown and would give your life a sense of adventure and newness.
Why not let yourself be hypnotized by nostalgia?
You may have noticed the rise of nostalgic movies.
Why don’t they make new movies? Why do they make modern versions of 90’s movies?
Because the kids of the nineties are now 40 years old and have money to spend 🙂
Because they know that nostalgia sells, it makes a person over 40 go to the movies with their kids and leave the money.
What lesson can we draw from this?
The system uses nostalgia against you to make you spend money, and along the way, they idiotize you because they appeal to your adolescent self. And they re-sculpt it from your inner self.
That’s why people today live an eternal youth by playing video games, having surgery to look young, and spending money on Superhero doll collections.
As demographic growth has declined, the solution is to turn the average adult into a teenager and keep them in that state (which leads to compulsive consumption of whims) for as long as possible.
And this has serious consequences for you. Because you don’t evolve. I am 40 years old, and I think my grandfather could have had these thoughts when he was 17.
You only need to read the authors of the last century at 20; they seem more mature than any of us at 50 or 60.
When you fall into the trap of nostalgia, it’s like you’re an oak seed planted in a pot. You will become a Bonsai, a miniature of the tree you were meant to be if you had been planted in the middle of the field.
Don’t remain a bonsai; transplant yourself out of the pot of nostalgia, mature, and become a great oak tree that will provide shade and fruit for future generations.
Takeaway
Every time you think that any past was better. And that the best years of your life have already been lived, revisit this article.
Think that the fleetingness makes you romanticize specific periods of your life; that it is — as in the market economy — the scarcity of something that increases its value, and therefore it is a mirage.
If you could revisit infinitely that past that you long for so much, you would surely end up seeing its weaknesses and stop being happy reliving it again and again.
So remember to live fully in the present and rejoice because the future is uncertain. Even if it scares you a little, it nourishes your life with adventure and excitement.
It is the present and the future that give meaning to being alive.
And don’t fall for the manipulations of the system that wants you to live forever in your youth, longing for your golden day and consuming anything to get back to them.
Grow up and enjoy the power of reclaiming and controlling the narrative of your own life.
A virtual hug
AG