http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTZjwAhCDo
i realise that the nostalgic feeling often leaves me with very little to write about. it's this strange feeling that's neither here nor there, and i can't put my finger on what it is. but then again, to think about it, nostalgia's not a peculiar feeling, it happens to everyone every now and then, it's not a different sort of animal at first or at each time. it's easy to identify but just so difficult to map out, to trace the outlines of. it's so hard because everyone has different little things they regret. and what i've come to think is that nostalgia is regret's child. regret, that most deadly, most debilitating of yin-feelings.
which is not to say that nostalgia is regret - it is only regret's child. or is regret nostalgia's child? if by definition a parent comes before and is the larger part to which the child, organic and self-determined, fastens, then at once my intuition clouds - yet vaguely reaches for the latter answer. and regret includes not only the things one does or does not, but also the things out of one's power to do. for human limitedness is not regret's boundary - once past the point, it is merely called by its more conventional, more generous name, i.e. sympathy. factor in time - for what is nostalgia without time's passing? - and sympathy past is the obverse of regret. but chief of regret, regret at its core, is really for the things one is responsible for - things one had good reason to do or not do, and was able to change or not change. when i hear someone say that he has no regrets, and i used to say this a lot, i think to smile at his folly.
so now that we are slightly better equipped (if in a meandering way) in our understanding of nostalgia - the question naturally entails - why the feeling? and this is where i fear to take a step, to point to this, that or other. there is no natural content to nostalgia, and there is no natural priority to the constituents of nostalgia-content. there are baskets, pockets of feelings, definitely, but to take this route might not prove useful. for what, after all, does it serve to say, oh i regret not being better friends with this person, we may have been good friends, even a romance - this goes to the girls basket. again, what clarity does it avail to say that this goes to the family basket, the grades basket, or the sporting-dreams basket? for labels do not go far. there is something about feelings which categorising does not properly capture.
not to ramble further in that direction, we return to the question, why the nostalgic feeling? what is this special feeling of retrospection, which makes a human being feel properly old enough to reconsider his life and events past? for it is inevitable that one feels nostalgia only close to a milestone, or more somberly, near something's end, including being past it. why? why do i suddenly feel old? for time creeps but it does not creep up on me! - that is my watchword. i can accept that windows open and windows close, and to accept it is not to be afraid of it.
to be nostalgic is to be a romantic consequentialist - to value decisions by their consequences, in a fuzzy, idealistic chroma. if only things had turned out like this that or other, if only i'd tried talking to her, if only one of my best friends was still around. perhaps i have made the case for consequentialism too broadly, for at first glance nostalgia seems little related to 'how things have turned out'. yet, even the basic wish - to be there again, those days! implies a reluctance to accept that the past was well-lived, for well-lived includes well-cherished, and well-cherished entails well-taken and well-acquitted of, so that one is willing to move on. and indeed how often nostalgia shades into regret! perhaps you will say that one can cherish the past and still wish to re-live it, but even ignoring the fatalistic (because we can only accept it) unidirectional passing of time, my objection is that one should not think that he could do better than how one actually lived, or experienced the moment, even with future knowledge, or with retrospective emotions, for it would ruin the moment. put simply, one could not have more meaningful feelings than one had at the time, and indeed, these feelings form the very memories which fractiously fuel our nostalgia. therefore, having been there is sufficient, is best.
thus i embrace choice and reject consequentialism, at least so far as my will permits, buffeted as it sometimes is by these yin-feelings. unwilling to stray too far into regret's true domain, i think this line of observation remains insightful - for nostalgia, stripped of its rosier inessentials, points to a longing for times past, nostalgia implies that the present is unsatisfactory, unsatisfactory, in a way the past was possessed of, for better or worse. and that is nostalgia - to obscurely despise the present.
ah, then we are a miserable people to often be so nostalgic!
"Well," said he (d'Artagnan), "they likewise have refused me."
"That, dear friend, is because nobody is more worthy than yourself."
He took a quill, wrote the name of d'Artagnan in the commission, and returned it to him.
"I shall then have no more friends," said the young man. "Alas! nothing but bitter recollections."
And he let his head sink upon his hands, while two large tears rolled down his cheeks.
"You are young," replied Athos; "and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances."
i have so far resisted talking directly about why i feel so peculiarly nostalgically disquieted, and there is no lack of themes which one can quickly warm to. i feel indeed that a large portion of my friends and fellows share these opinions and emotions, and will smile and nod wanly to hear my thoughts. we are, at the brink of something, something larger than, well, something large. the nebulousness of our position! far from being overwhelmed, but not to be underwhelmed either, we are left to grapple with vague, searching questions of meaning, purpose, passion, profession, principles and personage. character, and the things we have done, which henceforth we shall never do again. it is, a very small, very essential part of the existential question. but we are not concerned with the meaning of life just now - our concern is with the paths behind and before us.
i feel that this analysis has satiated me, indeed i am grateful not to be driven further, to delve into the exact feelings which constitute this vagueness. and that is not unlike nostalgia, to feel at one moment terribly affected by some recollection, and in the next to be quite reassured, master again of oneself. and the truth is that i am glad, for the past and the present. really, i think this to be true. there will always be things i carry which bring a shadow to my eyes, but as i stand and think, i know that i do not regret the things i ought not to regret. and perhaps that is no easy thing to say, after all.
i sometimes think about a few related things, related to my death. sometimes i think that it'd be no great loss if i'd never existed - my parents would have some other son, my friends would know some other guy, my god would have some other follower. sometimes i think that if i die i want to just disappear and be forgotten, never to be mourned. i told my good friend this once and she said, okay i'll remember not to cry. i was devastated! haha. but these things are derived of my conviction in the present - to understand the moment, and to live wholeheartedly in it. and that is not to say, without a care in the world, to the contrary - that everything that matters, matters in the present. and if you believe that, then there's no point in us just going through things anymore.
i picture you in the sun, wondering what went wrong
you've fallen down on your knees, asking for sympathy
and being caught in between all you wish for, and all you've seen
trying to find anything you can feel, that you can believe in
may god's love be with you, always
