Nostalgia
If you look at the etymology of nostalgia, you find that the direct translation from Ancient Greek is roughly “the pain of returning home.” I love that definition. For me, home and nostalgia are inextricably linked. Home is where Ifind my family and things, but it’s thememories that occupy the space that hold meaning and make home important. The combination is extremely comforting. Despite all of the positive feelings associated with home, the fact that those memories are moments gone is painful. It’s painful in the same way that everything beautiful is painful. As you stare at a gorgeous flower, there’s a sadness that underlies the beauty. We all know that each flower we see will die, but that only adds to the depth of the beauty.
As you could probably gather from reading my newsletters, I’m an extremely nostalgic person. Not only do I regularly dive back into my old things, pictures, screenshots and more, I also find nostalgia therapeutic. This partly explains why many of my newsletters have me return to particularly salient moments of my past. I love to revisitthe memories of my past. When looking back, everything has a warmer, comfortable glow to it, even though I know I’ll never return to those moments. The bittersweetness of my warm memories provides a small escape that never fails to make me feel better. In fact, every time I get my heart broken, I turn to my favorite TV shows(likeNaruto, my favorite anime growing up) or listening to Linkin Park) rather than continuing to watch the latest new Netflix shows or newly dropped albums. I lose myself in the feelings of being a little kid again, and painful emotions disappear for a moment.
Despite the fact that I love feeling nostalgic, I’m often confused by the emotion. A lot of my adventures in the past weren’t very enjoyable in the moment, yet I look back at them with such a strong fondness, simply because they are actions and places that I’ll never experience again. In this way, nostalgia serves as a reminder that I so often struggle to find beauty in the moments until they are over. It reminds me of the Japanese concept of ichi-go ichi-e, which translates to“forthis time only” and suggests that every interaction we have shouldbe cherished because it will never happen the same way again.
I’m inspired by nostalgia.I want to be able to find the beauty in every moment, even if it leaves me in a constant pain from the ephemerality.
Drops of the Week
where I *drop* recommendations of cool things this week
Article
“The Rose Quartz Ceiling: When It Comes to Love, Men Are Praised for What Women Are Simply Expected to Give” by Jaya Saxena- powerful piece about relationships and the inequality of emotional labor or“lovewithout action.” It made me rethink how I think about love.
Book
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman- I’ve been interested in mythology since I was a kid reading comic books about Hindu Gods and playing Age of Mythology. Neil Gaiman covers a variety of the most relevant Norse myths in a fun, straightforward tone that’s a pretty easy and fun read.
Playlist
“The New Yorker 1925-2010 party”- At one point in time, The New Yorker staff had a party where there was a playlist that had a single song from every year that the magazine had existed. Here’s that playlist. Listening to it in order is a fun experience since it moves from a lot of calmer and jazzier records to more upbeat pop over time.
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:~)
Love,
Nikhil