Nostalgia is a part of the present. I can't speak for the Romans or the Medievals but I am sure that a yearning for something lost has always been a part of the human condition. Such yearning necessarily involves a kind of self-deception, the beloved thing or time being screened through filters of memory, recalled over and over again. Apart from the simple errors of recall that we all make, confirmation bias ensures that the perception of a rosy past becomes even rosier, often at the expense of what really happened or how it really was.

There is a lot of this about in Australia at the moment. My guess is that whenever change reaches a certain velocity, or is perceived to, then folks reach for the good old days. Memes are generated and much hand-wringing commentary follows, the villainous present contrasting darkly with the whitewashed past. Consider -



Yes, I do remember this toaster, but with considerable disdain. The advent of the automatic toaster, though, not without its problems, rarely burns my fingers or the toast. I'm guessing that the manual toaster, like the one pictured, would still be sold and used if in fact anyone wanted to use one.

Another hot topic, particularly with baby boomers, is the one that bemoans how everyone (though especially young people) are lost in their mobile phones, even when travelling together on say a bus or a train. Surely, back when we were younger, folks talked to each other and generally made the travelling experience a convivial communal one. Alas,



The problem with recalling the halcyon past is that it makes our present worse than it really is. In recalling camping trips, corner stores, the childhood freedom to roam, the way a milkshake tasted (even the dented silver container!), the sound an LP record made, we forget the 1001 inconveniences, boredoms and plain unpleasant facts about the very same past. It makes our present less tenable if we are stuck in a groove of complaint. Readers of this blog will know that I am a great fan of many aspects of the past. It is just that I wouldn't want to live at any time in the past other than the present.

It's a balancing act really - appreciating what you have now against what might have been loved but has changed, often for good. There is perhaps one exception, and that is love that is lost. That is something that must be lived with every day.