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“A Wistful Yearning for the Past”: What Are the Lessons of Nostalgia?
The longing for a distant place involves a separation in time and a connection with deeply held emotions.
“There’s nothing else to make of life except to perfectly define yourself — to perfectly define your own existence. To be so utterly what you are that you can be perfectly perceived by others, which is an aid to them and everything to you. And which is happiness — I guess.”
— Timothy Findley, ‘Journeyman. Travels of a Writer.’
The other morning, I was deep in thought about the sadness of nostalgia I had recently experienced. Nostalgia had overtaken me numerous times in the past year, and I wonder if there’s a tipping point in one’s life that’s related to getting older. Is nostalgia somehow related to wisdom and a greater critical mass of life experience, and thus memory?
Perhaps the COVID-19 lockdowns have had something to do with my frequent experiences of nostalgia over the last year. With less social activity and other distractions, I’ve had more time to think…
