I have enjoyed my summer. My endeavours during the week allowed me to have dinner in a downtown park right under the sunlight. This square of urban nature was right in front of a building in which I worked for quite some time. This sight was awaking a pleasant feeling of nostalgia inside of me, even though the job was quite dreary. But if work was that bad, why was the nostalgia pleasant?

When I was looking at the building and thinking about those years, I was not feeling any inner pain. The general disorganization of the work environment, the useless arguing about proper procedures, the young adults around my age who were not responsible enough to move out of their parents home but were considered fit enough for supervising other employees, the times when I would have wanted to tell them all to get lost, all of those moments appeared blurred in my memory.

Instead of those things, I was thinking about the sights that I enjoyed on my way to work. The coffee I was picking up at the nearby Second Cup. The erratic schedules I had that I thought were amazing just because they were at odds with the vast majority of people. The challenge of juggling studies with work. The way I would entertain myself in those days. The view of life I had at that time. How things were completely different from today. Everything that I did not even notice at the very moment it was happening.

How can nostalgia make unpleasant times less painful while bringing to the forefront and beautifying the moments that seem insignificant at first thought? Is cultivating nostalgia desirable in a fast-paced world that does not show signs of slowing down?

September 17, 2006 | Category: Thoughts