‘There is tremendous freedom in not
believing every thought we have.’

D I V E   I N

​

Nostalgia

 

​

 

​

Playing in the street, dial-up Internet, a time when shops didn’t open on Sundays. Ah, nostalgia. (Meta question: can you be nostalgic for nostalgia? We think we just were).

 

Today, we understand nostalgia to be a bittersweetness that errs mostly on the positive side. Any sense of loss is cushioned by the total joy of the memory, as proven by our penchant for sharing Buzzfeed listicles about ‘90s snack foods and keeping old photographs.

 

     *                                                  *                                                *

​

The original definition of ‘nostalgia’ wasn’t this cheery, though. In fact, it was the opposite. The word was coined in the late 1600s by Johannes Hofer, a medical student who witnessed a certain type of anxiety in Swiss mercenaries who were fighting away from home. The word itself can be broken down into the Greek nóstos (homecoming) and álgos (sorrow/despair). Nostalgia was understood to be a physical and psychological disease with symptoms including fever, fainting, mania, and even death. It was also known as mal du Suisse (‘Swiss illness’) due to its frequent occurrence in Swiss soldiers, and it was often provoked by hearing a specific Swiss milking song. The condition was so prevalent that playing that song could result in death as punishment. 

 

     *                                                  *                                                *

 

Shortly after, British voyager Sir Joseph Banks used the word ‘nostalgia’ to describe sailors and their longing to be home (in English, ‘homesickness’ is a borrowed translation of ‘nostalgia’). Fast forward to the 18th century, and medical professionals believed that nostalgia was born from a ‘pathological bone’ and set about searching for it. 50 years later and no ‘nostalgia bone’ in sight, they admitted defeat and realised that it was not a disease but a symptom of a process, a form of melancholia that could lead to suicide. Yet, American soldiers in WW1 and WWII were still being diagnosed with it as a disease. They were also made to feel ashamed and weak about it — the preferred antidote was bullying. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t work. What did, most of the time, was sending patients home.

 

     *                                                  *                                                *

 

Even today, there’s danger in nostalgia. Beyond lovingly remembering egg and spoon races and MSN Messenger, it can influence us to see the past as favourable and the future as negative. There’s a name for this bias when it’s translated to beliefs about society: declinism. It’s a way for us to feel comfort when our present feels bleak. This might feel familiar to us right now in our current world. Many of the ghastly things we’ve suffered in recent times (e.g. Trump, Brexit) are a product of nostalgia being used as a political persuasion tactic (apparently, politicians even provoke social worries so they can use nostalgia as a tool). What they perhaps didn’t anticipate is the nostalgia (and declinism) that would follow their success; we desperately want the time before this shit hit the fan. It might not be healthy, but nostalgia for self-preservation makes sense in our current climate.

 

Nostalgia is also risky for its inherent comparison. In her TV series, Atlas of the Heart (in which she discusses a few of the 87 emotions covered in her book of the same name), Professor Brené Brown says, ‘Think about how often we compare our lives to a memory that nostalgia has so completely edited that it never really existed.’ Reality versus desired reality, the extent of editing dependant on how desperate we feel.

​

Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that all nostalgia arises from negativity. Brown states that ‘nostalgia is more likely to be triggered by negative moods, like loneliness, and by our struggles to find meaning in our current lives.’ In fact, in Atlas of the Heart, ‘nostalgia’ falls under the category ‘places we go when things aren’t what they seem’. This checks out; perhaps we’re more likely to fondly recall a time without mobile phones when we’re feeling confused by and disillusioned with our modern, disconnected, overstimulated society.

 

     *                                                  *                                                *

 

We wear rose-tinted glasses not only for the times we lived in but the times we didn’t. Most of us have an immediate answer to the classic dinner party question: which decade would you choose to live in? We wish we’d been around in the art deco ‘30s or the hippie ‘60s instead of today, simply because of what we’ve seen, heard, and read (The Great Gatsby! Woodstock!), even though we don’t have any personal connection to that time.

 

In an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine called “Old School”, Jake is excited to meet an ex-detective who wrote a raucous novel about ‘badass’ cops in the ‘70s. The reality, though, falls flat. The guy is a pompous homophobe, and Jake’s colleagues remind him that the ‘70s were ‘not a good time for the city or for the department... Corruption, brutality, sexism.’ Soon, he sees that the stories (and person) he has idolised don’t fit with the context of his life and the current world.

 

It’s likely that our wish to have existed in another era is a yearning for belonging; we believe we would’ve been better suited to those time periods or ways of living than our current ones. Like Jake, we’re experts at filtering out the negatives for one pleasant, simplified image that backs our cause. Perhaps this longing for a different era supports our belief that our discontentment comes simply from ‘wrong place, wrong time’ and not the myriad issues and traumas we’ve suffered in our childhoods, adolescences, and adult lives. Maybe it’s more palatable to romanticise our malaise and believe we can’t do anything about it than to confront the terrifying things that we’ve buried within ourselves. 

​

     *                                                  *                                                *

 

Nostalgia isn’t all bad, though.

 

Research found that ‘romantic nostalgia’ (remembering happy moments in a relationship’s past) can help to strengthen a relationship in the present. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory titled “The Romance Recalibration”, Amy fondly recalls the start of her relationship with Sheldon, gushing, ‘Aww, I remember signing our first Relationship Agreement’. Wittily, Sheldon replies, ‘You seem to be forgetting the “no nostalgia” clause’. But, as fans know, their relationship gets stronger over the course of the show.

 

This seems to be true not only of romantic relationships but all relationships. That said, there’s a fine line between an entire relationship being based upon shared nostalgia, and nostalgia being one of the many facets of a relationship. Much like a mutual hatred of someone, nostalgia as the base of a relationship probably won’t lead to a long, healthy connection.

 

     *                                                  *                                                *

 

There is a Portuguese word that has no single-word translation in English: saudade. It can refer to longing for something that has never happened or knowing you won’t experience something ever again, while also simultaneously feeling affection for what was or could have been. One description (translated), courtesy of writer Manuel de Melo is: ‘a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy’. A blend of sadness of absence and happiness of memory. What separates it from nostalgia is the combination of understanding the significance people and places have had on our lives and knowing that we will never be the same again.