I have a problem with nostalgia. I’m addicted to it, but it’s never enough.
Most of what I do is dedicated to the pursuit of that drug, to experience that particular high. I play ancient videogames in the hope that they make me feel how I felt playing them in the 80s or 90s. I watch old movies for the same reason. I listen to old music, or music that sounds like old music, trying to evoke the spirit of a time long gone. If I could live in a world where the TV played nothing but He-man and Thundercats and Mysterious Cities of Gold, I would…
But over the last few years I’ve come to realise that this dogged pursuit of the past is a futile endeavour. Beyond fleeting moments of glorious recognition, I never end up feeling how I felt back then. And why would I? How you feel at a particular time is as much a result of the person you are as it is a response to the thing you are doing.
As an increasingly grumpy nearly-50-year-old, I am a very different being to the awkward 13-year-old I was in 1988. These days, I worry more about retirement plans and interest rates than I do about homework and unrequited love. I am the Ship of Theseus, in which every part of me has been replaced multiple times. My reactions to things are dulled, more refined, more cynical. Not worse, just different.
Back then, I felt like I was leading the vanguard of something genuinely new. Every ZX Spectrum game felt like a voyage into the unknown, a private world that few people knew or cared about. This feeling was heightened by scarcity. I saved pocket money for months just to afford a new game. Whether the game was any good or not was less important than finding something in that game to last me till the next far off purchase. That paucity of novelty caused me to find aspects of a game to enjoy, because I had no other choice.
These days, I have too much choice. I have devices filled with every game across multiple decades, shelves filled with cartridges I’ll probably never bother to play. Novelty in abundance, and no incentive to make those precious connections.
And maybe I’ve seen too much? How can I be wowed by the undulating roads of Outrun or Super Hang On when I’ve driven every part of Liberty City or San Andreas? How can the freedom of Tir Na Nog thrill me when I’ve walked for days in Azeroth or Tamriel?
Even worse, I’ve realised that the nostalgia I crave is often not even my own.
I don’t crave the 80s of North East England, all social deprivation and baggy jumpers, the 80s of my actual youth. Instead, I crave the cartoon-ish 80s of the movies I grew up on. I crave NES culture, or long summer nights with chirping insects outside the window, falling asleep in front of a black and white movie marathon, the pink and purple sunsets of a caricature that this narcotic industry has created.
I’ve realised that the pursuit of nostalgia will never give me what I crave, so I’m trying to change.
I’m trying make a conscious effort to enjoy things for what they are, not what they remind me of. I play games because a 48 year old man wants to play them, not a 13 year old boy. I try to make new connections and associations, rather than rekindle old ones. Elden Ring - sure, that reminds me of the year I got married! Super Mario World - ah yes, the time I took a week off work to get all 96 exits and watch SDGQ! I try to generate new nostalgia, rather than wallow in old.
Most of all, I try to accept that nostalgia is a drug best enjoyed in unexpected moments of recognition, rather than as a constant hunt.
What about you? Do you have your nostalgia craving under control? Or do you still seek those glorious and elusive highs?
If I could live in a world where the TV played nothing but He-man and Thundercats and Mysterious Cities of Gold, I would…
As you know, that world wasn’t in the past, either. (“the 80s of my actual youth”) … You aren’t remembering your whole life in that era. You aren’t even remembering all your feelings about that TV show. You are only imagining a feeling you might had about that show at some specific time, perhaps a specific occasion. That feeling wasn’t nostalgia, so nostalgia will not replicate it. You can seek out nostalgia, but you can’t go back to the past. You wouldn’t actually want to.
Other people have these feelings who didn’t even live in those times, and can’t remember them. This isn’t about the actual past. It’s about aesthetics that you can find in your all-time favorites.
I felt like I was leading the vanguard of something genuinely new.
Now you can find that same feeling with other things that are new, and this is an aesthetic value. But you will actually live through the entirety of them, including when they are bad or boring. They won’t be your all-time favorites until you have picked over them and had enough experiences that some of them are peak experiences. Then, only in retrospect, will it appear that there was ever a world populated entirely by your favorites.
Everyone has their favorite things and their hobbies. If you loved concrete gnomes you could collect them, and this could be a source of satisfaction and relaxation to you. To draw a silly example, suppose you love concrete gnomes. If you want to start a concrete gnome blog, or a business where you repaint concrete gnomes, you can do that and spend more of your life dwelling on concrete gnomes, though in reality you will spend plenty of time focused on blogging or painting. At the end of the day, concrete gnomes (and everything else) have limited use, even to someone who loves them. They can’t possibly keep you permanently high or blissed out. As long as you understand that it’s an aesthetic, there’s nothing wrong with spending time on things you love, or looking for other things like them.
It was a harsh reality for me too especially when media from my childhood became readily available. But it just wasn’t the same. I remember watching certain cartoons and it is a fleeting moment of that nostalgia wave, and then it’s over. That realization that I can’t feel, at least not completely, how I did back then.
I do revisit older games that I enjoyed and even collect some that I never got to try. While still enjoyable, I resign myself to the fact I can’t capture that same feeling.
You’re right about so much old stuff, but some of it really surprises me. I think “I probably just liked this because I was inexperienced, and I probably want to re-experience it because of nostalgia” but then I realize, no, this is a real classic that is still amazing.
