Nostalgia is a funny thing, the way our
minds fool us into believing a certain time was better than some
other certain time. Because that moment is no longer present the
memories become distorted and we filter out undesirable aspects.
At the same time, there's something to
be said for being able to revisit what we once knew with a different
perspective. Our re-creation is not an exact duplicate of the
experience itself, nor should it be, but more a shadow of that
experience.
Seen or even felt through such filters,
our past has the potential to become even richer, so long as we
recognize the time difference and the distortions produced by these
filters. Why not have a pleasant memory of something that wasn't
pleasant at the time? Maybe the memory reminds us of how foolish we
once were or a lesson learned from actions we shouldn't have taken
(or should have but didn't).
“Everything happens for a reason”
seems overly placating. “Everything that happened really happened”
is more useful in my experience. Sometimes there's a lesson. Other
times there's simply a feeling best described by certain songs, or
movies, or paintings.
Dreams can have a similar effect. Who
hasn't woken up feeling that what they just experienced was real or
at least a jarring representation of something that had been real?
Living in the past is not only not
desirable, it's not possible. But visiting it now and then is. And
I'm not sure it's such a bad thing to remember who we are and where
we've been. It's not necessarily that those times were better than
these times; they were just different. And those differences add up
to a richness of life worthy of celebration or, if not that, then at
least acceptance of a sort.
No comments:
Post a Comment