Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
A thought, of the kind that crosses my mind when I’m trying to find excuses not to go to sleep:
If we had perfect memories, would nostalgia still exist?
Is the hankering for the “good old days” just the automatic self-editing of our minds to filter out the banal, humdrum, and even unhappy side of the past – leaving or enhancing the stronger, pleasant feelings? The good things seem to become better, the bad things become just a little less bad. Does the brain have a little optician’s shop just behind the amygdala to supply its own custom pair of rose tinted spectacles?
If we didn’t forget or alter these events in our mind, retaining a perfect record of our experiences, would we be denied the ability to look back so fondly on things? “Schooldays are the happiest days of your lives” is a phrase that is so often trotted out it has become a cliché, but with our brain’s tendency to modify the truth, who can really tell?
As technology advances, we’re likely to gain ways to record our experiences more accurately. It’ll start in the military and particularly police forces where head-mounted cameras and logging systems are already being trialled, making it possible to accurately keep track of evidence. Over time, this will move into consumer use, and most likely eventually to be integrated into our bodies and accessible on a whim.
It will be the ultimate diary, faithfully tracking every experience. But it won’t automatically do what the brain does – it won’t enhance some memories and suppress others. It will be full and complete; the good, the bad, and a whole lot of the absolutely dull routine rigamarole of life. Ninety percent of it will be memories of brushing teeth, getting dressed, eating, or watching television.
Nostalgia isn’t reality, so will it be lost? And with perfect recall of the best, most enjoyable things we have done, will we be forlorn to look through our memories and see how little of the time we have actually spent doing those excellent things against the time we’ve spent hanging around, working, sleeping, eating?