http://grantland.com/features/nostalgia-repeat/?print=1

Nostalgia on Repeat Response

Dreams are guileless yet at times naïve projections of reality. If traveling through the present is acceptable, wandering the past is indeed understandable. Looking into ones past is as entertaining as placing and arranging pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Nostalgia- mentioned in the article Nostalgia On Repeat by Chuck Klosterman-joins the condescending discussion of apparent wistfulness to reminiscing one’s youth, to that of growing up with childhood memories. What actually occurs during these moments is more complex than what one can only imagine. Still, over time, these psychological memoirs may be magically accessed by a sole glance at a picture, whose silhouette dwells in the past.

Frankly, a picture speaks a thousand words. For example- a baby picture. It is a pause, a freeze in time of a cute little self, unconscious and unaware of what lies before as well as what lies ahead in one’s life. When the eyes meet such a prospect, many thoughts are incurred. Observations shift to recollection of feelings and emotions. Time lapses and merges with other sensory dimensions. During this instantaneous moment ones eyes too meet the time of the picture-suspended in the hands of a new yet familiar wielder. With sheer clairvoyant vision, such a picture may very well be a painting-a living relic. Then comes the rumination; afterward, are questions regarding identity, reputation, and ego but finally, and most notably, the Self.

Essentially, what matters in life is the “[routine of] repetition.” “Repetition” may at first sound robotic and lifeless. Daily tasks seem to be at the expense of one’s divine charge. Life in the fast lane also becomes some sort of mobile paralysis. Inherent, that is, in perception at least. The irony lies in the belief that it is, as such demurs would say as “unconditional and subjective.” “The routine” must not be mistaken as being bounded by barriers and imitations of the sort. In actuality, the span of our formal existence breeds upon the saying: “we are what we do.” To cycle forward to new domains depends on how and when we push our everyday figures, analogous to the pushing of the same feet on the same pedal of a bicycle. Not everyday consists of the exact same sights and interpretations. The interpretation then is not if one is living or existing but whether or not foreign resolutions of explaining and perceiving this phenomenon are experienced for the sake of experiencing. To miss the bike ride and only focus on pedaling assures dire consequences much like in this case-mechanical repetition.

Perhaps, if still appearing monotonous, the routine is simplified to extraneous terms. Perspective befuddles, if one is not looking from the right angle. Exaggeration plays a role too as the truth may be stretched as well as feelings and sensations. Little does this suggest but that life is meaningless. It is not; at least if that is what one makes of it. Questions eventually surge on the meaning of life and its significance. Regardless, one must note that a man’s upbringing is characterized by the ability to retain, rationalize and recall. Every step a man takes in their lives, from infancy to teen youth to adulthood expresses the profound evolution of people and generations. It is this interlude that lives on, in memory, nothing else. So next time, one should be careful in mistaking the act of reminiscing ones past as nostalgia. For it is this undertaking, like time travel, that brings forth answers of not our existence but man’s consciousness. Thus, it is imperative to allow the sounds of the cosmos amplify, to let such vast plots and spaces be gateways to multitudes of universes to explore, discover and drive one self further into ones life, present and future.

Light stirs- blinding the birth of the child, vulnerable, emerging from darkness. As the child ages, knowledge and understanding accrues of the superficial. Darkness collapses, swallowing the child back to the catacombs of birth, grown, journeying from The Light. This is the world of life and death; existence and experience. Such a parallel realm will always remain explicit yet mysterious. Nonetheless, meaning derives from the creation of moments, memories and amassed manifestations of man’s very existence in this world that endows human beings the capability of connecting with other worlds-notably the past in line with the present. In more implicit terms, the middle road-between the beginning and the end-is formulated by the very act of remembering that builds staircases to heavenly connection.