WEBVTT - Nostalgia: The Kryptonite of Existential Angst? 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.280 Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.239 My name is Robert Lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:21.800 do you ever feel nostalgia creeping into your mind? I do? Yeah, 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:24.239 What do you What do you get nostalgic for? Well, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.799 you know, every time I hear like the tinny streams 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.520 of an old twenties tune, I start feeling like I 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.440 need to do that Charleston remember the days back where 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:37.839 there were talkies. No talkies ruined everything. Oh but I mean, 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.559 I mean, it's entirely possible that you could feel nostalgic 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:42.120 for that, say, if you were old, if you were 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.479 introduced to a lot of say old timey movies when 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:48.320 you were younger, you could You're nostalgia could conceivably sort of, um, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.240 skip back through time, and you could have sort of 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.160 an artificial nostalgia of the time from before you existed. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.680 I do have an affinity for that time period. But 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.600 I will say that having a kid, I definitely have 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:04.240 experien areous nostalgia more deeply than I probably have ever 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.040 in my life. Because you're you're you're observing the child 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.240 at a certain age, and you're thinking back on your 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.200 own existence at that time, just because time seems to 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.360 pass so quickly and there's so many beautiful moments. And 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.160 then there's this idea actually we're sort of defining nostalgia 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.679 right now, but it's that idea that you have a 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:24.280 resurrection of a memory or a feeling that carries with 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.600 it sort of a bitter sweet feeling because you know 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.440 that time has passed and you can never retrieve that 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.199 moment again, and it was a beautiful moment, right. Yeah. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.120 As a lot of people point out, in nostalgia tends 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.520 to hit you in a way where it it feels 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.400 it feels a little good, but not like whoa amazing, 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.440 It feels a little sad, but not in a like 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.840 a deeply depressive way. It's kind of this ambiguous, overall 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.280 positive feeling, but it's it's it's kind of all over 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.560 the place, you know. Like, I'll I found myself experiencing nostalgia. Um, 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.240 probably a lot more recently, and uh and I'll and 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:01.400 we'll talk about that as we we go here, but 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.760 like I'll find myself like thinking back to music that 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.640 I listened to when I was in high school, Like, 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.519 I find myself re exploring Tool albums and I still 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:13.320 like Tool to this day, but I was really into 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.480 them back in back in high school, back around the 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.720 time Annuma came out, and uh. And so I'm listening 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:20.799 to that, I'm feeling and I'm enjoying the songs, and 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.200 I'm feeling nostalgia and I'm thinking about uh, reading Lovecraft 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.480 for the first time and discovering this music and and 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.440 so on one hand, it's like a celebration of these 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.640 things that I still love. I still love Lovecraft, I 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:34.760 still love this music. But then I'm also thinking it 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.120 also makes me think or even subconsciously go back to 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.520 that time and uh. And it's weird because on one hand, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.720 it's like I don't really wish I was a high 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.840 schooler again, Like that was a weird time and there 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.520 are so many things were out of place and uh, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.560 and and yet there's something in me that's kind of 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.120 reaching back there or something from the past feels like 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.080 it's it's it's phantom limbs or are coming after me 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.440 in the present. Well, we're gonna it to that, We're 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.120 gonna get to this idea that this this idea of 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.239 first and in nostalgia, because they seem to be pretty 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.400 well connected and perhaps the reason why we continue to 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.600 dwell in this realm of nostalgia. John Tyrny, writing for 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.359 The New York Times, says that most people report experiencing 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.079 nostalgia at least once a week, and nearly half experience 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.519 at three or four times a week. Um Erica Hepper, 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.960 she's a psychologist at the University of Surrey and England, 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.280 found that nostalgia levels tend to be high among young adults. 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.720 This is really interesting too will get into this and 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.920 then dip in middle age and rise again during old age, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:39.800 and that nostalgia begins as early as age seven. Well, 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.280 what do you have to nostalgic about an age seven? 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.880 You do, because I think that you have this awareness 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:47.200 that you're getting older. You're like, oh, man, I was 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.160 just thinking the other day about poop and my pants 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:54.400 and it was like, well, you know, like even uh, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.040 my four year old will sometimes say I don't want 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.200 to I don't want to get older. I don't want 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.640 to grow up. Because she has the sense that she's 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:06.720 moving beyond time and she's moving beyond phases and that 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:08.720 there are other things in front of her. So it 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.000 doesn't surprise me that it's as young as seven that 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:15.120 kids start to look back and pine for some sort 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.120 of warm and cozy memory. You know. It's it's interesting 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.960 that we are talking about in nostalgia after just recording 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.600 an episode on the Oral boris the world consuming serpent, 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.520 the eternity snake, uh, the eternity dragon, because that is 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:31.480 a creature that is curving around and consuming its beginnings 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.440 and in and in doing so, creating this the cyclical 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.480 nature of itself. And in a sense, nostalgia is that 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.880 we are reaching back into the past and feasting on 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.720 our beginnings and it seems to uh to fill us 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.200 with us with some sort of energy. Well, and we're 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.839 recycling our memories. That's interesting because I was thinking about 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.120 this in terms of materialism like that when this is 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.960 one of the reasons I think that nostalgia has taken 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.760 such a hold in the United States, at least in 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.400 the US fifty years or something. You never since Coke 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.520 started serving up this idea of Santa Claus and all 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.320 these sort of classic warm memories post World War two, 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.200 because that's that's a way that you can easily access 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.760 that nostalgia, right, the music, it could be merchandise. And 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.840 I was starting to think about how, in some ways 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.839 our existence for each of us, it's almost like we're 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.120 living on a movie lot and we just kind of 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.000 roll in all these props that kind of make us 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.799 feel more connected to whatever it was or is important 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:32.400 to us in our lives. And a lot of that 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:34.720 has to do with nostalgia. Yeah, certainly. I mean, like 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.840 you said, the advertisements constantly changing the culture, at least 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.200 the visuals of it and to us, and also the 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.720 technology of it constantly changing, and and therefore we have 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:49.520 all of these obtainable physical, uh and or visual symbols 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.640 that we can call to to to feed that nostalgic 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.000 hunger in us. Yeah. I was thinking about the new 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.279 iPhone commercial. Have you seen this? It's basically just people 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:03.360 hanging out with their phones and going through um old 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:10.000 texts or conversations or um pictures and feeling nostalgic. And 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.400 I thought, well, this is interesting because they've they've taken 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.240 this phone and sort of made it a stand in 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.120 for the repository of your memories or nostalgia and connected 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.400 it that way. It sounds like a horrifying episode of 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.280 Black Mirror. It's it's supposed to be poignant, Well, it 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.560 sounds dark. Um. In fact, you might even say that 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.080 it sounds a little sick, and you would You wouldn't 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.320 be the first person to think that nostalgia sounds a 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.560 little bit like some variant of mental illness. So yeah, 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.720 I didn't realize this until I started doing research that 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.000 nostalgia was actually considered a psychiastric disorder at one time. 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.520 According to Dr Clay Rutledge writing for Scientific American, there's 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.680 a Swiss physician named Johannes Hoefer who coined the term 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:57.039 nostalgia in to describe what he considered a cerebral disease 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.320 you need to Swiss mercenaries fighting wars far from home. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:06.159 He thought that nostalgia caused anxiety, insomnia, irregular heartbeat, and 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.760 disordered eating. And he also thought it was caused by 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:14.320 continuous vibrations of animal spirits through fibers in the middle brain. Yeah, 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.080 and it was like this big mystery. I mean, people 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.560 were like, oh, this this nostalogy. You've gotta be careful here. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.520 Let's let's not play in ay these tunes because our 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:24.960 soldiers are going to go into a deep depression or 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.080 find what's the matter with these guys. Something must be 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.080 wrong that they're not enjoying fighting this war and risking 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.040 life and death far away from home. Why did they 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.640 keep getting all sentimental about a simpler time back in 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.480 a place that they know and loved. Yes, sick, this 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:40.880 was this is really interesting. This is New York Times 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.600 article UM called nostalgia? What is it good for? It 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.800 says that military physicians thought that it had to do 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.640 with the soldiers ear drums and brain cells being damaged 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.239 by the unremitting clanging of cow bells in the Alps. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.560 So it was you know, obviously this was not a 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.720 well studied area. UM. I like to imagine the study 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.680 that might have happened, though, where you have two test groups, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.480 one exposed to alpine cow bells and the other not. Right, 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.800 I know, So was it the cow bells? No, it's 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:14.880 not at all. Um in this persisted this idea really 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.960 into the twentieth century and professor of history at Weber 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.119 State University, her name is Susan J. Matt. She said 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.440 that this disease of nostalgia was known about in the 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.800 United States during the Civil War and there were seventy 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.320 four deaths from it on the Union side, in more 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:33.440 than cases in the Surgeon General's records, and it became 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.520 such a problem that they banned army bands from playing 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:42.000 Home Sweet Home. Now. Now here's one of the something 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.120 that occurs to me out of these examples for starters. Okay, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.640 nostalgia the things I feel nostalgic about, like, and I 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.920 think a lot of people do. Like nostalge atends to 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.200 apply to things that by and large don't matter in 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.400 and of themselves, Like you like the feeling you feel for, 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.400 say a departed loved one that has died, like that. 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.560 It's not nostalgia that is, that's like a deeper, more 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.400 close emotion, you know. But but nostalgia is a little 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:10.320 harder to classific. It seems like two things need to 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.920 happen for you to feel nostalgia. Either your your physical 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.040 surroundings have to change. You have have to travel somewhere 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.200 and and in in olden times, whine would you travel 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.080 a long distance, especially if you were not particularly into 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.480 the idea you would do so because you were engaged 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.520 in the military conquest of some kind. Or what has 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.320 to happen is the world around you has to change. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.720 It has to the music changes, the advertisements change, the 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.360 technology changes, etcetera. And then and then you you feel 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:44.760 this nostalgic link to a place that doesn't really exist anymore. So, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.800 I wonder to what extent in previous ages it was 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.960 harder to feel nostalgia because you weren't necessarily going to 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.440 ever leave the area in which you lived. You know, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.200 you'd be more or less surrounded by the same places 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.160 and uh, and the the level of technology, the level 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.600 you know, the basic aesthetics of the world around you 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.920 would more or less remain intact. Now that's interesting, especially 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.880 for a grarian based societies. Right, so ten thousand years on, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.679 we primarily have just been in the same place, except 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.679 for when you begin to think about place like the 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.439 United States of America, which is a very young country 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.000 and in a country that many people immigrated to and 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.160 people continue to move around. And that's sort of an 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.040 American thing, is that you, um, you find your survival 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.800 by sort of picking up and going and uh doing 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.360 something for yourself that's new in a new area, new possibilities, right, 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.880 the gold Rush, so on and so forth. We encountered 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:43.840 that on Facebook all the time we all have that 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:45.600 have that friend who's had a tough time. They're like, 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.800 I said, I'm moving, leaving to a different city, going 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.680 to start over somewhere new. And that's that's the the 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:52.480 idea in itself. You know, I'm going to change my 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.480 physical surroundings and in doing so, I will change who 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.000 I am. Well the Susan J. Matt, the professor of 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.320 history UM, she was actually saying in that way that 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:05.800 nostalgia became a very un American emotion because not only 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.320 did it have this association with the psychiatric disorder of 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.200 people who had come back from war, but it was 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:18.800 this idea that was opposed this whole like manifest destiny, 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.240 that you need to not feel homesick, that you need 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.800 to pick up and move and begin your life and new. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.920 And so she was saying that it was very interesting 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.400 to see the ways that it's represented in American culture, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:36.280 and really in American culture that, uh, nostalgia doesn't truly 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.880 get embraced until after World War Two, and she says 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.520 that much of that can be attributed to the fact 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:47.120 that during World War One they began to better understand 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.720 nostalgia and they began to better understand that people who 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.280 came home who were depressed and who had anxiety had 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.359 signs of the newly established syndrome of shell shock, not nostalgia. 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:00.800 You know, in a sense, the idea of nostalgia as 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.120 a negative force, it does make a lot of sense 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.920 because in a sense, it is looking back to the past, 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.480 clinging to the past, instead of moving forward and uh 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.680 and welcoming new things. So I can I can easily 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.240 see where it could it could be interpreted as a 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.040 negative force. And if you were nostalgic for things that 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.080 are harmful, either like say, hey man, I really miss 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.040 cocaine or something, you know, like that would be bad nostalgia. 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:25.560 Or when you see like people who are really in 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:31.840 to say, images of sort of an imagined anti Bellum South, 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.560 you know that that can be kind of disturbing as well, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.800 Like you're kind of nostalgic for a thing that didn't 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:39.680 quite exist the way you think it did and was 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.040 really kind of a horrific time, right, which kind of 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.040 gives you that whole idea that again, memory and the 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.200 way that we construct our world is unique to every 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.480 single person, right, we just sort of all agree on 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.760 a set of conditions to say, hey, this is how 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.319 we're defining the world. But everything else is up for interpretation. 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.679 But it does turn out, and we'll talk about this 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.280 after the break, but it does for now that nostalgia 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.720 actually is a good thing by and large because it 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:09.120 helps to regulate our emotions. That being said, I'm gonna 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:16.240 go get nostalgic for for some talkies and the carton cigarettes. Kids. 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.240 All right, we're back. We've been talking about nostalgia. We 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.720 talked a little bit about the toxic nostalgia, but for 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:35.160 the most part, this is a positive force in our lives. 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.480 It is, and we should probably scratch at what exactly 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:43.920 actually characterizes the experiences of nostalgia. Dr Clay Rutledge, who 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.760 I talked about before, his research focuses on how they 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.800 need to perceive life as meaningful, impacts mental and physical health, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.040 close relationships, and intergroup relations. So of course he's very 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.960 interested in nostalgia, and he says that these memories tend 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.280 to be focused on momentous or perly meaningful life events 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:06.960 that prominently feature close others, so friends, family, romantic partners, 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:14.560 family vacations, road trips with friends, weddings, graduation, uh birthday, parties, 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.520 gatherings for the holidays, all these sorts of things are 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.840 these cherished experiences. Yeah, I can see that, like just 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.160 thinking about family trips, Like I instantly think of family 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.080 trips to the beach, and like oysters, like raw oysters 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.960 with cocktail sauce and salting crackers. There you go. See. So, now, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.120 if you are one of the participants in one of 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.800 his studies, that's probably what you are. One of the 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.480 things that you might have written about. And one of 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.320 the things that were Ledge found with the participants is 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.880 that when they were writing about their nostalgic experiences, um, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.520 and when someone went through and sort of weeded out 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.040 everything else, they found that there were many more positive 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:00.720 emotion related words used than negative emotion from related words, 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.080 which I thought was interesting because it's come up before 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.040 that we tend to have better recall and use of 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.800 negative words than positive ones in general. But here's this 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:16.440 case where you have just a outflowing of positive words. UM. 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.840 Kind of giving you a hint as to where this 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.680 is going in terms of your mindset. Yeah. So, researchers 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.800 have looked at the causes of nostalgia and they found 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.480 that there are a number of things that can kick 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.120 it off. Social interactions, So like you're getting together with 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.520 an old friend and you're talking, hey, remember that that 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.040 teacher we had in college, And the next thing, you know, 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.840 an nostalgic or some either a particular experience or some 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:41.760 sort of fragment of that time. UM sensory inputs music, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:43.640 you hear an old song and you're like, oh, man, 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.600 I haven't listened to this in forever. Nostalgia or a smell, 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.920 And we talked before about how would smell that kind 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:55.240 of undercuts our conscious labeling of experiences. So we'll smell 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.480 something and will suddenly be so nostalgic for something, and 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.120 we don't even necessarily remember what we're being nostalgic for, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:02.640 but that smell will take us back to sort of 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:07.000 a general time frame. Tangible objects of course, old photographs, 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.480 you know, somebody's old watch, somebody's old wedding ring. You 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.119 handle that and it'll take you back. And the iPhone. 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.800 I mean, people do get nostalgic about their technology. Like 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.720 one of the nostalgic trips that um I have found 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.280 a musing I interviewed a guy who is really into 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.080 it for the blogs and uh and I've gotten into 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.520 it a bit too. Is VHS nostalgia, Like we know, 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.760 when when we were done with VHS is and we 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.840 moved to two DVDs, like we couldn't have most people 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.760 just couldn't get rid of those VHS tapes soon enough, 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.600 just dump that we have a better technology around. But 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.760 now people were really filling this, uh, this flood of 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.640 nostalgia for and in my case is a lot of 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.080 it is the films of that time and the kind 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.200 of looking sound that they had the digital film scores. 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.480 But then some people are like really hardcore nostalgic and 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.320 and even obsessive about the technology itself. They're like they're 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.000 they're buying old VCRs, fixing them up, They're collecting tapes 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.240 sometimes spending uh kind of crazy amounts of money on 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.639 on what to any other I would be a just 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.359 a beat up piece of discarded technology. Well you you 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.320 hear the same sort of thing in the recordings of 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.359 music sometimes, like people prefer to hear the scratchiness or 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.680 just that the imperfections as opposed to everything that's eded 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.159 out and so clean. Um, you know, I think that 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:26.600 was one of the chief complaints of going from a 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.760 record player to a cassette player. Yeah, the distortions and 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.199 the imperfections of the sound become a part of what 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:37.960 we loved about them. Uh. Two artists, in particular musical artists. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.000 There's a musical artist named Tycho. And then of course 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.320 Boards of Canada. Both of these groups, especially Boards of Canada, 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:49.680 really employ uh, this nostalgic, audible nostalgia for for sounds 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.280 that are sort of distorted, old electronic soundtracks, this kind 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.520 of thing. And uh, and they weave all these things together, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:57.639 like take the things we're nostaluted for and boil them 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.000 down to their basics and then reassemble them into two 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.400 a new um sonic form. And then so you're you're 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.760 taking it in. It's a it's a new thing, but 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.760 at the same time it is is heavily nostalgic. You 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.119 have to stay with an accordion. I just feel that, 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.320 I mean and growing a theremin and I'm just a puddle. 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.040 You're before this is through, you will tell us something 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.480 you're actually nostalgic for. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.960 about that at all. All right, maybe you are a 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:29.160 time traveler, time lord, even everybody, all right, So those 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.760 are some of the things that cause of nostalgia. But 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.879 in these studies, a negative mood was the most commonly 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:40.240 reported cause of nostalgia and uh and and generally loneliness 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.240 was the most frequently listed negative emotion that led to 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:48.080 nostalgia yeah, which led to the researchers positing that psychological 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.239 threat was the culprit for digging into the past and 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.080 using nostalgia as a kind of bomb. And of course, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.400 how did they do this or bear this out? They 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:00.400 triggered a sense of loneliness in their participants. They had 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.080 one group who, after completing a questionnaire, were told that 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.359 they scored high on loneliness. And then they had a 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.000 second control group which they said that you don't rate 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.560 very high on loneliness. And then they asked all the 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.359 participants to complete a measure of nostalgia. And it turns 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:20.800 out the participants in loneliness condition reported being significantly more 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.760 nostalgic than participants in the control group. And then, just 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.720 just to make sure that this was really going on, 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:30.800 they had another study in which some volunteers read a 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.280 story by a supposed Oxford philosopher who wrote that life 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.040 is meaningless because any single person's contribution to the world 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.119 is quote paltry, pathetic, and pointless. And of course the 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.560 idea here is that there's a theme that threatens perceived 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.399 meaning in our lives. And then they had another group 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.680 read a neutral story. Again, it was those people who 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:57.240 read about life being meaningless who indulged in nostalgic thoughts 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.320 and feelings. Well, you know, I I compared this to 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.919 my own experiences because right now I'm not I'm not 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.320 in a lonely state of mind or a depressed state 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.320 of mind. But um, tomorrow evening on, my wife and 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.960 are flying to China. We're gonna pick up our son, 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:14.680 and it's gonna we're gonna be there for two weeks, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:16.800 and it's gonna be kind of stressful, and it's gonna 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.720 be like a life changing event. Uh. And so I 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.520 feel a certain amount of anxiety about that, and I 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.120 feel a lot of intense excitement about it. And then 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.720 and then also just like you know, seven siultaneous heart 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.080 attacks here and there, as I as I think about it, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.080 and so I can only assume that a lot of 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.760 my recent nostalgia, as opposed to do sort of general 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.760 in nostalgia, has maybe risen out of that. It's possible. 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:41.680 I mean, do you find yourself kind of not that now, 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.000 not that we need to get you on the psychologists 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.360 couch here or anything, but do you find yourself kind 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:50.720 of accessing childhood memories? And yeah, definitely. I mean when 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.040 especially when it comes to purchasing books for the child 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:56.520 and looking at toys, and then you know, I'll say, oh, 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:58.680 I have this book. He's like, oh my goodness, I 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:00.680 don't have a copy of the star Belt Sneeches in 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:02.359 the house. Yeah. I had that as a kid. And 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.240 and then and maybe that's why the Starbid Sneeches have 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.920 come up in like three different podcasts recently, because I 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.119 keep thinking back to the things that influenced me as 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.840 a child as I consider this child coming into my life. Yeah, 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:18.080 it's possible. Your son is very lucky. By the way, Sorry, 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.560 well try Yeah alright, Um, No, I didn't mean to 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:24.920 get all of a clemp fish. Um. So, I mean, 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:27.400 as you we can tell, there are definitely benefits here 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:31.600 to indulging in nostalgia because it does kind of make 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:34.680 you feel as though perhaps you are re centering your 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:39.840 universe of meaning just by accessing this information and reframing 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.840 what's going on in your current life? Right? Um? Now 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.480 from the journal Current Directions and Psychological Science, paper by 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.320