On Nostalgia
Nostalgia–a subject on which I consider myself something of an authority by way of experience–is a curious thing. The general sufferer of nostalgia loses countless hours in (often sad) reflection of his own life, and imagines his former days to have been idyllic, glossing over the mundane or unpleasant aspects thereof. The advanced nostalgist does this, but also extends his scope of reverie to encompass ages in which he never lived, and places he has never visited. He practically invents the details of this world of which he laments the loss. He never lived in Paris in between the wars, or a small American town in the 1950s, or London in the nineteenth century, but he involuntarily goes to great mental lengths to imagine it.
For the latter sort of nostalgist, articles like the one in today’s New York Times–about the vanishing barns of Iowa, and the changing character of farm life there–simply offer fuel for the fire.
Filed under: Musings, Nostalgia on September 7th, 2008 | No Comments »