When Precious Memories Stop Holding Up...
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This isn’t the kind of thing I usually blog about, but something’s been compelling me to write down my thoughts about nostalgia. After all, those who know me or what I’m about do know that it plays a very pivotal role in my life.
As a teenager, I used to be the type of person who lived strictly in the past. I even remember a particular car commercial I saw on TV at one point: A black-and-white close-up shot of a woman looking like she was straight out of the 1920s, saying, among other things, the line “Nostalgia is not glamorous”. I used to disagree vehemently with that kind of message, fully convinced that humanity’s golden age had already come and gone and there’d be nothing else on the horizon worth getting excited over.
Of course, I had a very myopic way of looking at things back then, as is to be expected from a child whose brain is still developing. But it probably also didn’t help that I had a strong emotional attachment to particularly the games and consoles I used to play growing up, born equal parts from a deep fascination with the past that my parents had lived through, as well as just my general apathy for the future due to a lack of aspirations (I was one of the only kids in my class who never had an idea for what he wanted to be when he grew up).
I’ve since had several experiences — especially in recent years — that redefined my personal stance towards nostalgia. Obviously it still informs many of the things I do: My active and sunconscious creative choices when making games, music, videos, or when writing in general. My interests and fixations, as well as the things I collect. Even my plans for how I want to furnish my future apartment (more lava lamps!). But I’ve also come to truly feel the “-algia” (i.e. pain) part of the word.
My most poignant memory in that regard is when I traveled to my childhood village in March of 2022, visiting my dad for his birthday. One day, I took a walk through the whole village, top to bottom, still knowing the place like the back of my hand from all the adventuring I used to do as a kid. But as I walked through the empty roads, with a song I’d recently finished composing playing in my head on repeat, I began to feel more and more like I was exploring the ruins of an ancient civilization I was once part of, left with only my memories of what used to be and will never be again. My friends have left, the local venues haven’t been used for any events or festivals in many years, and where there was once a treehouse by the creek, there now wasn’t even a tree anymore.
It got me thinking about how the word “nostalgia” was originally coined as the medical term for homesickness — I was definitely feeling beraved of a home I effectively no longer had.
I felt a similar twinge in my chest when I digitized boxes of old photos last month, most of them from before the turn of the millennium. It was surreal seeing depictions of my parents at a time when they were younger than I am now (my mom rocked that 80s-style perm), but my focus was much more on the backgrounds: Snapshots of what our house and the surrounding neighborhood used to look like. Wide patches of lawn before they got paved or otherwise built over, traditional-looking houses before their walls got painted all sorts of tacky colors... I didn’t even remember that our sofa had a wooden surface in the corner for placing items on, rather than the usual cushioning you’d expect. The house as it is now looks nothing like what it used to, with pretty much every room having been completely redone, made more spacious, but also a lot more barren.
Rediscovery of what was once thought lost and forgotten isn’t always a happy reunion, either. For instance, there used to be this show that ran every Saturday evening on a local radio station. As a kid, I lived for it, and even got two CD albums and a board game based on it. While in university, I didn’t have a radio of my own, nor was I aware that you could stream radio over the internet (which, with the tight bandwidth limits I had, wouldn’t have been a good idea, anyway, but I digress), so I was unable to keep up with it for a while.
I don’t remember entirely when it was, but I found out that the show had been taken off the air after its host had expressed support for a right-wing, anti-immigration movement that had been picking up steam around 2014 or so. Needless to say, I was pretty bummed to find out that a person who’d defined my childhood (and whom I’d even gotten to see live on one occasion) turned out to be this much of a nutjob, but I tried not to think much of it, opting to remember the show for what it was and separate the artist from his work... which lasted until I happened upon one of the albums again and gave it a listen. There were sketches parodying skinheads and Islamic terrorists alike, among a few other tasteless jokes that, to put it charitably, very much felt like products of their time.
At that point, all I could really think about was that the writing had been on the wall all along, and it had all just gone right over my head because of course it did. I was a child.
Speaking of radio, though, and to avoid lingering on such a depressing note, you should have seen me when I found a station that plays exclusively 80s songs. The chorus of (I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena by Sandra hit me like a truck after hearing it again for the first time in possibly decades. Something about the harmonics was haunting, bittersweet, sending me back to the earliest chapters of my life, back when my parents were still together. Similar reactions were had to songs by other artists of that time period, too: Camouflage, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys, Sade, New Order, Falco, the list could go on for ages.
For a while, it was this feeling of old, forgotten memories and emotions rushing back all at once. I did get accustomed to it the more I listened to these songs, of course, what with the novelty wearing off and all, but other time periods gave me very much the same feeling, too, especially the early 2000s, which are pretty much the pinnacle of childhood nostalgia for me.
Nowadays, I’ve come to follow a few people on Bluesky whose brand is to share glimpses into what things looked like in the time periods I tend to find myself romanticizing. The aesthetics themselves are definitely desirable, at least — there’s a certain warmth to it, as well as reminders of the strong personality that the cultures of the 90s and early 2000s were oozing with. Adopting those aesthetics for oneself kind of feels like becoming part of a counter-culture to the minimalist (or, if you ask me, outright sterile) design language of the 2020s, reminiscent of a cold, uncaring, dystopian world where it feels like you only exist to be exploited for your labor and personal data, where creativity and self-expression are at best stifled, at worst offloaded to and bastardized by AI.
It’s easy to forget, though, that things weren’t always sunshine and roses back in those times, either. Humans are good at conveniently suppressing the bad things they’ve experienced, so couple that with childhoods usually being relatively carefree (compared to later stages in life), and it’s not hard to see where the “everything used to be better in the past” mentality comes from.
All things considered, although you could say I’ve been burned by the reality that the past wasn’t entirely how I remembered it, or that I’ve had to grieve for times and experiences of which the only remainders are distant memories, the past is still precious to me and I still embrace my nostalgia for it. I just do so much more responsibly now than when I was younger, because I know that what I hold dear now will inevitably fade away eventually... but all that means is that, like my slogan — “Creating Tomorrow’s Nostalgia” — indicates, I just have to continue making memories for the future.
If you ask me, every stage of time has equal importance. The past informs decisions you make in the present, and provides a safe retreat for when things get too much to handle — a little escapism is perfectly healthy, after all. The present is what you can actively control, and what you obviously have to try to make the most of in order to live a life that’s fulfilling, whatever your personal definition of that word may be. And the future is what gives your life purpose, as your aspirations and the goals that you set are what keep you going.
And I, for one, have come to the realization that, ever since I entered the workforce two years ago, I’m actually looking forward to my future for the first time in my life. I want to continue developing games, compiling music albums, expanding my website, making videos about games with strong personal significance, move into my dream apartment, and so many more things that I would never get if I simply kept living in the past.
At the same time, of course, I still want to pay homage to and share the experiences that molded me into the person I am today, and use my creativity as an outlet to show the world what I’m all about. Not just for myself, either — I want to give others things to look forward to and things to look back on fondly, as well.
Hopefully what I wrote makes sense.
