“I miss the days when nostalgia was so much better.”
You can fall into an internet sinkhole poking around at bulletin board thread and blog posts from a decade and a half ago and begin to feel like things were far superior in nearly every way way back when.
Of course, that’s not really true and even if it seems so, that’s only because you were younger then, with stars in your eyes and piss and vinegar in your veins. Everything appears brighter when it’s shiny and new; the world is merely a reflection of your own mental and emotional state; the better you are, the better it is, as well.
That said, I do miss those days when bike-riding and blogging seemed like they might be able to change the world for the better. When there was still some reason to resist getting a cell phone. And when it still seemed possible that climate change could be confronted.
I know that right now is the real now for lots of people, and in some ways, it is even for a 63 year-old like me. But there was a time, not too long ago, when everything new seemed new, as opposed to now, when so much of it seems like old business that is finally being attended to.
Riding my bike home along the Burke-Gilman trail some twelve to fourteen years ago, I remember thinking that I was already nostalgic for the present time in which I was living. I knew I would look back upon those days with bittersweet sentimentality, even as I was experiencing them.
These days don’t really feel like that; certainly, they are memorable, but if I had a time machine, today probably isn’t the day I’d set the dial for.
If I knew then what I know now, I’d want to not know then when I now know. Ignorance isn’t really bliss, but the less you already know, the happier you’ll learn.
