Nostalgia & How to Make the Best of Our Time
Does nostalgia ever punch you right in the stomach leaving you short of breath?
Yesterday I had my guts tested by a mighty nostalgic blow while checking my email:
My wife, two children and I had just come home from a one week vacation in a rented summer house. Our stay had been blessed with fine weather, great experiences and lots of prized family time.
Under normal conditions I would not be affected by the image I saw as I sat there in front of the PC in the evening.
But, yesterday it took me back in time.
The email in question was from Airbnb and it asked me to rate the rental experience, prominently featuring the image that knocked me off my office chair. The image boldly featured a photo of the summer house we had just left a few hours ago and it affected me deeply.
Here is how it looked:
What on earth did I find so controversial about this photo you ask?
You do not have to spend time looking closely at the photo to find something out of the ordinary or even shockingly, because you will find none. Yet this exact photo resembled something profoundly for me and maybe you can related to it as I explain further.
This photo resembled a week of my limited time on this earth - one of the great ones in fact. And even though it was only a matter of hours since I had, for the last time, closed the patio door, emptied the fridge, gone on an expedition to find missing toys on the lawn and driven out of the driveway, it suddenly felt like a distant memory.
A feeling of nostalgia or longing overwhelmed me.
What had been taken away from me?
Theoretically I might be able to rent the same house again in the future, but that is neither my intention or point here. Most likely I will never see this place again, ever, and that is somehow a frightening realization.
I believe this longing for an experience or time can be compared to the feelings we tend to assign material belongings.
Minimalism
Often times we assign certain feelings towards the stuff we own. We get sentimental and protective of those things that supposedly should make us happy.
Those feelings sometimes end up making us more miserable because they limit our abilities to live life in the present. They make us worry about stuff instead of enjoying the course of living.
Examples:
I often found myself worry a lot about burglars while I was away from home especially on holidays. After too many of these unwanted worries about theft I sat down to figure out what made me worry so much. I found out that I actually only cared much about very few material things and those things was in all honesty stupid things. One of them was an old Port wine from 1957, and after realizing that this bottled caused me more pain than joy, I drank it.
Digital files on my phone or computer. Those personal files just had to be backed up and the worries were gone. Simple and easy.
Since that realization I have been cutting down on the "stuff" I own and the rewards have been huge. Today for an example we had to leave a travel bag out of sight while traveling by train. That would have coursed lots of worries to my former self, but now I know that I can easily replace all of my "stuff" in that bag in case it is stolen. In effect that frees up my mental focus to be present with my family.
I do believe, by experience, that owning less equals more happiness.
Do yourself the favor of liberating yourself from redundant stuff in order to have more positive experiences.
What really matters
When I saw the photo of the summer house I got pretty sentimental, but in this situation nothing was stolen from me. It was a memory, a unique memory only accessible to me, perfectly locked up in my head. I have no reason to worry about anything really. I have the possibility of revisiting this exact summer house as often as my heart desires. I do not need to gather my stuff, ask my boss for time off, drive a car or visit Airbnb again - I can just revisit the memory of our perfect vacation in the summer house.
What really matters is not the house, the place, the weather or anything anyway. What really matters is the presence and to make the best of it so we can collect more great memories to revisit whenever we like.
I am sitting here, pondering your post @ronni... and having "an experience within an experience."
You see, I read your post, got to your picture, read the words "Vurder din oplevelse med Oluf" and thought to myself "Jeg er dansker... jeg savner vores gamle sommerhus...men hvorfor det... det er da egentlig underligt?" and went on a nostalgic experience of my own. Strange, because I normally think in English, not in Danish. I can't explain it, exactly... but there was a slight sadness (vemod) at the thought.
Maybe what we experience is a variation on the Japanese "mono no aware" which best translated means something like "a reflection and slight sadness at recognizing the transience of life as this moment will never exist again." We can still revisit any moment in our memories... nothing was "taken" from us; but a "present moment" was replaced by a memory.
I don't know if I am making sense at ALL here... but I felt compelled to try to write this out.
You are making perfect sense denmarkguy and it is a difficult feeling to explain in words. Nostalgia and longing are not doing it justice, the feeling is very complex but your Japanese saying does a good job at trying to convey it.
Having left your country of birth must certainly awaken some of these "mono no aware" feelings. I hope some of my posts from Denmark will bring you back in time once in a while because this strange feeling is actually quite insightful.
ronni
Hi ronni, nice post! The vacation home looks very cozy, but like you said, it's funny how looking at this picture feels totally different to you than to me. I think we feel nostalgic when we think of those "good old times" and sometimes, we feel a little sad because those times are in the past. Maybe one way to reduce nostalgia is to think of how the past contributes to your present happiness - that is, instead of focusing on the past and feeling sad that the trip or experience is over, we can focus on how that past experience added to our present happiness. It's especially enjoyable to reminisce about past trips and adventures with your family and friends and enjoy the present moment of reminiscing.
Nice solution with drinking that old Port wine. 😀
That is actually a fantastic way to look at it sizzlingmonkeys, thank you!
Sometimes thinking about the past makes me a little sad, but as you mention the past is in a way part of presence. Everything leads up to the current moment and all experiences forms our current selves. My wife and I have more than 10 years history together so we definitely have a lot of moments we can reminisce.
ronni
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