WEBVTT - Nostalgia is not the most toxic impulse 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:03.400 Chuck, let's go over the Stuff you Should Know concert calendar. 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:06.840 My friend, we are hitting the road for the Spring 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:08.400 Had Sprung Tour. We are going to be at the 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.920 Neptune Theater and Lovely Seattle, Washington on April eighth, my friend. 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:14.520 The next day, we're gonna head south to Portland, Oregon, 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.239 Revolution Hall April night, We're going to Houston, Texas, my 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:23.920 friend and Warehouse Live on Memorial Day weekend, and finally 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:28.400 finishing up Denver, Colorado at the Gothic Theater on May 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:31.800 twenty night. Two more dates coming. Yeah, keep your ears 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:33.880 out and in the meantime, if you want to get tickets, 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:35.880 you can go to s y s K live dot com, 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.000 power by squarespace and we'll see you guys on the road. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.800 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:52.960 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.960 There's Child's w W Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry, and this 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.880 is Stuff you Should Know. There's so many things I 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.400 could do right now. I could my Buddy theme song, 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.760 could sing the theme song the Thunder of the Barbarian. Okay. 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.600 I could talk about tops baseball cards, yeah, and that 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:16.760 that rock card stick dumb that came. Yeah, um, I 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:18.600 don't think they have gum in baseball cards any more, 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:20.800 do they? And maybe they just gave up the ghosts. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.520 They were like one wants that, nobody wants it. It 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.840 took out some kid's eye and that was that. Uh yeah, nostalgia. 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:34.120 So I think we should dedicate this show too, John Hodgeman. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.800 Let's I thought we kind of implicitly dedicated every show 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:44.400 to Hodgeman, but we do why explicitly this time? Hodgeman 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:49.279 is uh, he is on record time and time again 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.800 with the following quote, Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.080 Oh yeah, that's he doesn't like a Christmas story? Does 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.160 he now think he's seen a Christmas story? But he uh, 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.000 he is very adamant and has been on record many 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.480 many times on his own podcast, Judge John Hodgeman and 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.800 to me in person when he wants to go on 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.080 about how much he hates nostalgia, about how bad it 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.800 is and in his deal and I'm gonna mention him 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.639 quite a bit in here. So he's either gonna listen 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:22.840 to this and be like, oh my god, it's about 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.560 nostalgia and these are my friends, or he's gonna skip 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.840 it all together. I could see him skipping it all 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:29.359 together because he didn't want to hear about it. We 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.560 maybe should clue him in and be like Hodgeman, you're 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.079 in this. He'll listen to it a million times if 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.160 you tell him that. So his notion is that, uh, 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.400 it's a longing for a better time that does not exist, 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.600 that we look back with rose colored glasses and it 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.320 was not in fact better, and that it's toxic to 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:52.960 do so, right, And that's absolutely a correct definition of nostalgia. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.040 But no idea falls apart at the end when he 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.520 says that it's toxic, because quite the contrary, nostalgia has 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.240 been proven again and again to be quite helpful. Um, 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.880 I don't even agree that that's the definition of nostalgia. 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:07.600 I don't. I don't think it has to be longing 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.200 for a time in your past, because for me, nostalgia 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.840 is not longing for that. It is just very warm 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:19.000 remembrances and wrapping myself up in that. God, man, I 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.239 wish I could be fourteen again. You don't wish you 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.280 could be fourteen, No, not at all. I wish I 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.480 could be twenty six again. Nostalgia. It's a pretty dope 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.120 time in one's life, nostalgia. But I don't I don't 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.840 look back and say man, And I also take issue 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.880 with you know, sometimes things were better back then. Yeah. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.280 But Hodgeman makes a pretty good point, and so do 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:49.600 the social scientists that so support his point. Um, when basically, 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:55.000 by definition, when you are experiencing the emotion, this very complex, weird, 0:03:55.320 --> 0:04:01.680 understudied emotion of nostalgia, you're thinking about something in a 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:06.280 way that it really kind of didn't actually happen. Like 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.480 the negative stuff gets cut out. Um, you know, like 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.520 stepping on a rusty nail right after that great memory 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.960 from camp or whatever. Uh, that part gets cut out, 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.200 And I disagree with that, just the good stuff. So 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:24.719 I'm talking about like the studies that support it. Yeah, 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.000 but they they don't think these studies are right because 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.480 the subjective it's very personal. Like I can remember that 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.039 social science for you. I can remember the smell of 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.719 my grandparents house, their first house, and how much I 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.240 loved it in that one summer I went on my 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.240 first plane trip. And I also remember biting my tongue 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.560 off playing soccer and how awful that was. Like I 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.680 don't edit that out and be like, no, everything about 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.920 it was great, Like no, I bet my tongue off 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:52.760 and it was terrible. Um. So okay, I think then 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:56.320 what you're talking about is the difference between reminiscing, which 0:04:56.360 --> 0:05:00.359 is more of an episodic memory, and nostalgia, which is 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:05.040 almost purely just an emotional memory. No, that's an emotional memory. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.000 All right. Well then you you'll just have to say 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:15.039 I believe you, Chuck, I Burns, I believe you Chuck. 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.960 All right, So let's go back in time a little bit. Um. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:25.200 There's a Swiss doctor named uh Johannes Hofer, and he 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.000 was studying some Swiss soldiers that were stationed abroad, and 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.000 he said, you know what, there's something going on here. 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.640 They are depressed, they're anxious, they can't sleep, they're tired, 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:41.080 they're even having heart palpitations and fever. Um. They're angry, 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.360 really easily um, and they just can't stop thinking about 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.440 their home. It is almost as if they are home sick. Right, 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.280 And he coined the term. He coined the term um 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.839 the nostalgia from Greek nostos, which means to return home 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.960 and I'll go or al jos pain so the pain 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.520 of yearning to return home. Yeah, it is what he described. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.400 He literally said, it's a cerebral disease of essentially demonic 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.479 cause ideas of the fatherland, making them sick and longing 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.640 for home. It's a no brainer. It's like these guys 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.120 are fighting a war and they'd rather be back home. Yeah. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.719 It sounds like he was describing PTSD though as well, 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.920 maybe because when these attendant symptoms that he talked about, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.440 like not being able to sleep or eat and having 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:33.400 fever and heart palpitations, that's not nostalgia. But Johannes Hoffer 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.400 did um set the tone for nostalgia for centuries, so 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.000 either it was viewed as a physical malady or disorder 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.479 or disease or a psychological one up until basically the 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.359 nineteen eighties. To tell you the truth, UM. And at first, 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.600 because the Hawfer's study of the Swiss soldiers UM, they 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.680 actually thought that possibly it was just the Swiss who 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.719 were afflicted by nostalgia. And one of the other alternative 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.360 explanations for it was that the constant clanging of cow 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.880 bells had done something to the nerves connecting the ear 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.920 drum to the brain and was basically driving these people crazy, 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.400 wanting them to making them want to go home, or 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.840 at least steal the cow bell, right, get it off 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.360 the neck. You want to hear something weird. So Hawfer 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.560 also said that, um, the ideas of the fatherland that 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.320 were vibrating in the soldier's brains. Um, he said that 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:36.960 that was brought on by animal spirits. And I read 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:41.640 this yesterday. The same night I was reading an article 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:46.560 by Dr Jack Cavorkian about human experimentation among the condemned 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.200 and executed, because that's what I do, right, He mentions 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:54.160 animal spirits in the exact same way. So apparently there 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.840 was a time when they thought that the they called 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.160 but what we would now call the electricity and the 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.280 central nervousist them animal spirits, right, one of those old terms. Right. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.360 And I ran across it twice in one day, which 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.720 is basically the bottom line haff phenomenon. I just thought 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.640 that was so weird. I mean, like, yeah, and that's 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.640 pretty obscure, you know, very It's not like, oh I 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.960 saw eleven eleven on the clock again today, you know, right, 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:25.080 those people animal spirits? Alright, So uh, fast forward a 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.640 little bit. Uh, and we like you said, for many, 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.080 many years it was looked at as a mental illness 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:35.400 called melancholia or immigrant psychosis. Yeah, that was another thing. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.440 They thought that just immigrants, semen, soldiers and kids who 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.400 went off to school were the ones who suffered from it. Yeah. Basically, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.840 you get shipped off somewhere and you yearn for the 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:50.000 place that you liked better, which is called just homesickness. Homesickness, right, 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.520 but then different things. But but not until the the 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.400 eighties even, um, did it begin to get separated. Yeah, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.920 and this article points out very astutely, I thought this 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.960 was pretty good. Um, that homes Julia Layton joint. Yeah, 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.319 she's been around house stiff works for a while. She's 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:13.440 a vet. Uh, not a veterinarian or a veteran soldier. Um, 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.160 although I don't know, Julie, she might be both. Yes, 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.280 you could have you never know, served the mp dogs 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.719 as a vet in the army. In the army. Um, homesickness, 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.360 Julie points out, is distressing, which makes a lot of sense. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.720 And that's different from nostalgia because nostalgia generally is even 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.480 though it is complex. Uh, and we'll get to all that, 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.280 it is generally looked at as a feeling of like 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.480 pleasant feelings watch over you when you think of the 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:51.240 good old days, in direct contraditioniction to Hodgeman's ideas. Um, 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.960 all right, so let's talk about it, okay, So um, 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.199 Since it was up until again the late nineteen eighties 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:04.160 viewed as basically an attendant symptom or somehow tied into 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:09.920 depression or some other psychological malady. UM, it wasn't until 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.360 very recently that the social science has started to say, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.320 I don't know if that's necessarily true, let's look into it. 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.120 So the actual study of nostalgia itself is extremely new, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.440 and um it's still very much understudy, which is to 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.360 say that the social sciences has not yielded any kind 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.800 of definitive answers to what nostalgia is, where it comes from. 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.440 The There seems to be a general consensus that it 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:38.480 is an emotion, but the complex secondary emotion, meaning it's 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.280 not anger, it's not fear, it's not joy. But it 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.360 seems to be secondary and it seems to spring from 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.720 um society in the same way that a secondary emotion 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:51.760 like embarrassment or self consciousness UM has arisen from our 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.080 experience in society. The nostalgist seems to have come in 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.360 the same way. Yeah, and they've noticed some trends, which 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.240 is about as good as you can do when you're 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.920 studying something like nostalgia. And when we talk about some 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:08.520 of these real studies, it's they're frustrating for me to read, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.440 but we'll we'll get to those. But some of the trends. 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.040 If you are a worry wart, you might be a 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.640 little more prone to nostalgize because you know, you're you're 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.160 trying to escape your worries and think about like a 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:23.520 happier time when you're on the beach, toes in the 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.480 sand maybe, uh. And they experts think that if you 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.160 are in transitional periods of your life, you're going to 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.200 be more prone, Like if you're a kid growing into 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.920 an adult, or if you are in your forties and 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.520 fifties and you're transitioning into uh, let's say fifties or sixties. 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:42.920 Well from in my forties, from middle age in two 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.040 senior adulthood. Yeah, these transitional, big transitions in your life, 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.560 you might might be a little more prone to sort 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.440 of look at your life and think, because what have 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.560 I done with my life? Is also tied to nostalgia. 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.760 And that makes sense utterly and completely because what they 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.760 found with nostalgia is that it's a it's like you said, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.880 it's a means of escapism. And during these times where 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.680 you're going from adolescence into young adulthood UM or middle 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.760 aged into old adulthood, that's a that's a place of fear. 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.480 You know what's coming next, and you start thinking about 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.400 the good times that you've had. UM. Almost involuntarily, it 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:26.280 seems like nostalgia happens. You think, yeah, let me, uh, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.640 I'm a little nervous right now, let me nostalgize. It's 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.120 almost like an involuntary mental trigger that takes place. Although 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.319 that is a thing. Uh. Julia points out that, UM, 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.720 people can use it almost like a bag of tricks 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.800 if they are prone to depression to call upon these things. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.760 And it's like nostalgia can be a tool. I mean, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.680 you'd have to kind of conjure it up. Sure, no, no, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.400 I know you can, you know, but you don't necessarily, 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.200 that's not necessarily how it happens. And and they found 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:02.600 that there are plenty of things that trigger like music, UM, 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:07.280 like smells, uh, different things that you that basically serve 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.880 as mnemonic devices in the formation of emotional memories. Um. 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.120 And the thing that's come up from the study that 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:17.600 has been done on nostalgia is that it seems to 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:22.439 be universal. That's it's not culturally bound, and the triggers 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.680 that trigger nostalgia are also universal. So it'll be like 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.040 a social memory of a social experience with friends and family, 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.760 you know, and like that might be culturally bound, like 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.640 Thanksgiving in America or Canada where they have fake Thanksgiving 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:42.360 a month early, um, but then it might be Carnival 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.280 down in Buenos Aireas or something like that, so that 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.560 the actual experience might be culturally bound, but the trigger itself, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:53.240 having a good time at like a holiday is universal. Yeah. 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.920 So let's take a break. Uh, we'll come back and 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.800 talk about triggers more after this, and we'll let Hodgeman 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.240 take a deep then maybe run around the block because 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:23.040 I since he's getting angry. So we're back, Yeah, we are. 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.720 We had to establish that because I got confused. You 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:31.160 mentioned music being a trigger that is very powerful. Um. 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.760 And again it's it's variant among people's individual experience, but music, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:40.920 for me still I thinking about this is huge nostalgia trigger. 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:45.240 But I think I realized that almost add percent of 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.760 the time, it's a song that I haven't heard for 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:52.960 a long long time. So if I hear Jay Giles 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:57.920 Fands Centerfold, great song reminds me of elementary school in 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:02.320 a very powerful way and even specific things. But I've 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.600 heard that song a gazillion times. I hear it once 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.360 a week on classic rock radio, So it doesn't flood 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.680 you with nostalgia. No, no no more. You've heard it too much. 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.920 It's over you. But if I hear a song from 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.520 like all of my CDs are packed up in the attic, 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.120 and most of those are from like a certain period 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:20.800 of my life where I bought CDs, So if you 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.520 hear true Blue, you just start weeping. With true Blue 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.400 more recent than that. But if I hear a song 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.320 from like one of my CDs from the mid nineties 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.840 that I just may not have heard in a long time, 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.200 that is like super super powerful. Well, like what song 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:36.360 I don't know, just like a song from my l 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.120 a days maybe um or or just something I don't 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.640 listen like, uh, something from college that I don't listen 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:44.920 to anymore, and it's like never played on the radio. 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:51.920 Like I'll hear Urban Dance squad deeper Shade of Soul, uh, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:58.680 deep shade of Soul. Right, remember now it sounds like 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.120 a pretty nineties song though it was very nineties, and like, 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.720 you never hear that song anymore. So if I hear 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:06.920 that song like just now, I just sang a little 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.480 bit of it. How how are you feeling, I'm feeling great, 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.440 I'm not. I'm not feeling toxic. Hodgman is mad at 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.040 you right now. I know it feels wonderful. Stop stop 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.120 so And I don't want to go back in time 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.760 too then either, I'm just remembering, like, man, what a 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.680 great song that takes me back to college. Yeah, And 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.680 and the reason why songs tend to be so powerful 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:32.360 and potent um, especially from a certain age, typically adolescents, right, 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.480 supposedly has to do with the way that the brain 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.160 is working right then. You know everyone says teenagers have 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.160 like raging hormones going on. Well, there is a lot 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:46.000 more brain chemistry floating around than happens throughout the rest 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.760 of your life, so it's easier to form very powerful 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:54.840 emotional memories. Um, and when when you're listening to music 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:56.840 at that age, So that when you go back and 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.040 listen to it, it's basically going back and you're a 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:04.280 card catalog of a brain and unlocking that emotional memory 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.280 so you get to experience it a little bit again. 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.399 And then that's nostalgia brought on from by music. Yeah, 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.280 that makes sense for me. The one that gets me 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.800 the most is sent Yes, Senten tastes for me are 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.840 really powerful too, so like um, the smell of um 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:25.240 Pillsberry cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. It's like Christmas age eight, 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.120 like every time. Now do you ever eat that stuff? Now? 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.040 I just did yesterday as a little trip down memory lane. Yes, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:37.960 well not as it you know, but it inevitably brought 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.000 it on. Okay, so you didn't say, like I'm doing 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.040 a nostalgia podcast, I'm gonna go get some of those 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.280 sweet rolls. No, it was totally coincidental. Actually, like the 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.240 animal spirits. Yeah, what I've been doing lately is seeking 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.119 out things that I haven't had and forever, just to 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:55.399 see what happens. Oh yeah, So so basically you're the 0:17:55.440 --> 0:18:01.360 other day, you're like strange Days. Remember that movie with Refines. Yeah, boy, 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.040 that takes me back, but with but with nostalgia. How 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.800 what what flavor s? I did the same, always did 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.879 a mixed cherry and coke. And I haven't had a 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.560 slurpie since probably like high school. And it was it. 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.240 You know, that taste was so familiar and exactly how 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.040 I remember. But it wasn't like, oh, this takes me 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.639 back to those days. I'm just like, oh, this is interesting. 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.919 I ate a circus peanut the other days. Now they're awful, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.200 but I haven't had one since I was probably ten. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.800 I've avoided those of my whole life. Yeah, and um 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:34.960 those you know those uh, the other one that gets 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:36.960 me of those, remember when you were a kid trick 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.920 or treating and you would get those kind a chewy 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.680 peanut butter treats and the wax the waxy rappers. Yeah, 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.240 I don't remember what they're called that, there were no name, 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:50.080 like but email that really Yeah, it's got to be 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:56.359 that orange or like those man instant of nostalgia. Nice 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.800 not toxic. Yeah, it's wonderful. Um, peanut butter twicks can 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:02.840 do that for me. It was one of my first 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.800 favorite candy bars. I'll thought you about say like it 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.399 takes me back to two eight, No, they had peanut 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.199 butter twicks in the eighties, they tried it for a 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.600 little while they were all stopped. Yeah, they don't have 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:17.119 those anymore, do they. Okay, is that one in your pocket? 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.400 It's been tucked into my cheek right now. So a taste, 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:26.760 they think, and induces nostalgia pretty heavily because the pathways 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.879 carrying information from taste buds are in the limbic system 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.520 and where scent is as well. Yeah, and your old 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.560 factory bulb is super duper in the limbic system, and 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.440 it's actually got a direct connection to the amygdala, which 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:45.080 helps experience emotions. And um, what's the other component of 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:49.280 the olympics system, the hippocampus. Yeah, the hippocampus which sorts 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.840 in stores memories. So your old factory bulb itself is 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.360 almost literally plugged in to the two components of your 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.960 brain that form emotional memories, which is one reason why 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.560 I scent can trigger nostalgist so powerfully too. Yeah. Does 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.080 that I wondered if that means that if it's more immediate, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.840 then it's stronger, like if it's just a quicker link, 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:17.040 maybe like literally the pathway is shorter. It could be 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:22.680 interesting that I mean that's that's what Layton um supposed. Yeah, 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.040 I don't think she'd uh pull that out of her head. 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.159 I think that's the common belief, right for something that 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.560 they don't understand that much. Yeah, And I that I 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.640 think that's probably got to be coming through to dear listeners, right, 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.359 that this is like this is there's a lot of 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.280 grasping at threads going on, in part because it is 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:46.760 just very um, it's very early on in the study 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.119 of nostalgia. There's not a lot of people studying it, 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.199 and so the number of theories is kind of narrow, 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.040 but a lot of it does make sense. Yeah, And 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.080 when you look at these studies, which we'll talk about 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.000 so many of them hinge on. All right, you're feeling nostalgic, 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:03.960 All right, let's do something to you, right, Or you're 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.600 not feeling nostalgic, Let's do the same thing to you, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.920 which I mean, this is a very tough study to 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.000 pull off. It totally is. And that's a big problem 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.720 that the social sciences run up against, Like they are 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:20.359 studying subjective reports. Well, the average person can't tell you 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:22.440 how they're feeling, even when they sit there and think 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.600 about how they're feeling. So there are standardized, standardized questionnaires 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.639 that have become accepted in the field that that say 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.639 this scores of persons like UM like feeling of nostalgia. 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:38.560 There's actually a questionnaire that that is designed to rate 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.359 how nostalgic you are at the time you take it. 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.200 Um and and there's there are ways to study. It's 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.840 not just totally willy nilly, but when you compare it 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.600 to something say like um biology or something like that, 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:56.639 it's it's a little it's it's slightly whispier. Agreed, Um, 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.439 Should we take a whispy break and talk about some 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:18.280 of these studies to this? Yes, all right, buddy, we 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:23.240 teased on some studies. Uh and I don't want to 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:24.800 say I made fun of them, but they're they're just 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:27.640 I think you pointed out some of their inherent flaw. 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:32.240 So let's talk about them. Um. Here is one where 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:37.919 they had subjects read about different things. One was a 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:42.160 tsunami disaster, one was like one bad thing, two good things. 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.240 One was a disaster, one was the successful landing of 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:47.359 a space pro another one was the birth of a 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:50.000 polar bear in a zoo, which I mean depending on 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.119 like that right there, you might hate polar bears, you 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:56.280 might hate zoos. You know, it's a good point. Uh yeah, 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.600 it's a real good point. They probably shouldn't use that. 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.639 And it's a problem with any kind of standardized questionnaire, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.640 whether it's the S A T or the Standardized Questionnaire 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:10.760 for nostalgia totally. Uh So, after reading these they answered 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.200 questions assessing their current levels of nostalgia. What they found 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:17.040 was the people who read about the tsunami, we're the 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:22.200 most nostalgic, which led them to believe that people call 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:26.120 upon nostalgia when they're not feeling good about something right, 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:29.520 and that use it. That is the prevailing predominant theory 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:34.600 of nostalgia these days, that it is a um It 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.920 is you can do it voluntarily, but it's basically an 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:43.840 involuntary defense mechanism when we experience what's called discontinuity, and 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:46.800 discontinuity comes in many forms, but all of it amounts 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.640 to a reminder that we are going to eventually die 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:54.880 one day, and that thought can come in all sorts 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.919 of different forms. It can come when we have a 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:01.440 relationship that's breaking down, when we're far away from our 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.960 social network. We there are any number of ways that 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.119 were reminded of our own mortality, right, and one of 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:12.280 our big defense mechanisms is growing nostalgic. And uh, it's 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:17.399 basically built in suicide prevention because it makes you wonder, like, 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:19.520 if we didn't have a way to get back on track, 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:26.520 like through nostalgia, and you just like entered a period 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:31.080 of discontinuity and never got back to you know, life's 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:34.040 good again, where would we be as a species? Who knows? 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:37.240 So nostalgia seems to be some sort of evolutionary trick 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.280 where um, when we look into the void and think, 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:42.640