I'm not particularly nostalgic, nor do I feel like I have had a hard life. However when I get nostalgic about a piece of music from my past it often seems to be tied to an unpleasant memory and listening to it will induce a sense of unease. It's like a repressed catalogue of sorrows.
I think it is human nature to frame our reality in an elaborate fantasy of ideals and selective perception. When that reality comes crashing down it can be quite a painful process reconciling the truths that we previously chose to ignore and constructing a new paradigm to allow us to move forward. Perhaps nostalgia offers a more resilient paradigm that is less likely to come into conflict with reality?
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