Nostalgia

• The price we pay for remembering pleasures of the past combined with an awareness of ones own mortality and the irreversible nature of time.
• A very attractive proposition for a whole range of reasons.
• We value long term memory in ourselves and others. Without it we are trapped in an endless succession of meaningless moments.
• "Lower order" animals survive in this state though unconscious slavery to and reliance on their instincts.
• "Higher order" animals (the ones that we bond to most deeply) have all proved to have long term memory in some form: ...dogs, horses, women (just joking)......
• There are some exceptions … such as cats. Dogs will die from exquisite nostalgia at the foot of their dead masters bed. Cats will be licking the bowl of their next servant before the body is cold. (who said this ?)
• Animals also show us that, without significant long term memory, relationships are much simpler - a bit like bulls and cows…. Or "Sex in the City".

Main ways to avoid nostalgia:

• Experience no pleasure. Those who have had little joy and much pain in life are enemies of nostalgia, or rather envious of others nostalgia.
• Memory research also shows that unpleasant and particularly traumatic memories are actively forgotten and sometimes suppressed when forgetting is not fast enough to protect the ability of the "gestalt" - the whole - to function.
• Nostalgia paints a smile on the stony face of the past. (Mason Cooley 1927- U.S. aphorist.
• Memory research shows that boring experiences are the first to fade from conscious long term memory (although they could possibly be brought back by such techniques as hypnosis. No-one seems to be working on this exciting possibility).
• Nostalgia is the pain that accompanies some memories.
• Nostalgia - sounds like a nasty inflammation of the honker most prevalent in winter, but no... Those with a sound classical education will immediately recognize the two roots... "Nos" from the greek (nostos nostum nostarum, noshatus, nosh up) meaning "returning home" and Algia from indo-european meaning pain. Thus originally, "Pain from thoughts of home"
• Whenever I think about the past, it just brings back so many memories. (Steve Wright?) -
• Memories that elicit this pain are only those that are associated with a sense of loss - Loss of the experience of being home - homesickness (less frequently used in modern times -
• Nostalgia used to be commonly listed as cause of death in 1900's
• Loss of childhood, youth, past social setting through the irreversible passage of time - nostalgia for the past (most common modern usage)
• Any childhood or past setting that was pleasurable but unattainable will thus be a likely cause of nostalgia. We only need to look at a picture of a 3 year old who is now 21 and be brought to tears by the realisation that we will never experience the naïve adoration and joy of that child again.
• The past has grown into a more complex present. We feel nostalgic. This is not dangerous. This is natural. This is human.