So you might have been swamped with posts, videos, clips, and everything in between promoting a whimsy sort of nostalgia.
For some, this might even have been exhausted, as it is largely used as a marketing strategy promoting consumerism in many, many cases.
I’ve been somewhat late to the digital party around nostalgia, as I’ve had most of my socials deleted from my phone for the past few years and am only able to partake once in a while, when the greed for quick dopamine fixes becomes overwhelming and I cave after a day of boundless overwhelm and stress.
It still baffled me to find out that the internet had been moving on to a topic I had, on my own, been gravitating around for quite a while now.
Nostalgia Feels Natural
Nostalgia feels natural.
When everyday life goes on in a way that is moving way too fast, happenings all around us flood our periphery and become too much, too scary, many of us look for an easy escape.
Not only that, as I was living through one of the greatest hardships of my life so far, I often got the feeling everything was kinda off… life just felt so dull and colourless, and days were only routine, with an utter lack of the boundless joy and wonder I was used to from my days growing up.
I’ve been ruminating much about the things I did differently then and what actually brought me those joyous memories I like to bring up in my everyday life again and again.
I remember vividly feeling a sort of euphoria from the simplest of things, such as running through the woods, building little shelters from sticks, or makeshift bridges across small streams.
I think back to times when the most exciting thing in life was having a sleepover and staying up till 12pm to play a board game we were obsessed with.
In my childhood, days were filled with joyful simplicities spent with friends, my cats, or all alone. An afternoon alone at home became the greatest luxury, as I could use it to finally binge-watch the most exciting TV shows.
Other days, I had just gotten a Nintendo as a hand-me-down, my first ever console, and played on it day and night, waking up with incomparable excitement at 4am to play for an hour before school.
Even in my teenage and very early adult years, I sustained this ability to be open and truly enjoy the wonders my life had to offer, even when hard times really got to me.
Then I would meet in my friend circle whenever and wherever, and we’d hang out for hours, even days. We’d smoke weed, drink alcohol, and enjoy the crappiest of junk food together, but more often it would just be hours spent in company, talking, laughing, or playing games — board and video games alike.
The company would feel natural and light. Talking to each other would never be shallow catch-up culture and drain my social battery like most of my newer adult friendships tend to do after a while.
I’d be active in my school’s committees and even after-class activities, and I had some sort of spontaneity that I can’t seem to muster nowadays.
Just heading out without an appointment or plan after school, grouping together with whoever was there at the time and was looking for a fun afternoon, was the most natural thing and led to amazing experiences I will never forget.
So What Happened?
These times, however, seem to have come to an end.
I think they might have ended quite a while ago, and although I couldn’t possibly put a singular factor on it, I’d say that they ran out sometime during COVID, when everyone’s mental health started to tank hard, friendships became unsustainable over lockdown, distance, and some of my nearby relationships, including my own, ended.
My former friend groups had been pulled apart. Whoever was even just a tad outside the circle had broken off, my social batteries’ capacity had reached an all-time low, and graduation was right around the corner.
In this clusterfuck of unlucky circumstances, only the most hardened and fire-forged friendships lasted.
And they weren’t many.
Shortly after the pandemic, people around me started their new chapters in life, as one does after graduation.
Some moved, some started busy jobs right away, others simply drifted apart.
Gen Z loneliness epidemic hit, and it was as if overnight, I had unlearned how to friendship.
If you’re anything like me, you might recognize yourself in the pattern of the dullification of my life.
Still, as with most things in life, I don’t think it has to stay that way.
So let’s problem-solve!
Step 1: Identify the Underlying Issues
After months of introspection, trial and error, and even consulting some self-help books and coaches, I think I might have identified some of the main causes for my feelings of dullness, loneliness, and tristesse.
1. Scarcity
First of all, not to be that person who sees a phone and screams “devil” (and yes, this is probably the single most obvious issue you’re all aware of), but I do think a smartphone, especially used excessively and for the consumption of social media, may be the actual devil.
In this post, I might often draw comparisons to past experiences with certain things, to understand how they were so different from today’s life, and the first thing I’d like to do is take a bit of a dive into my personal origin story with smartphone experience.
Back in 7th grade, when I got my hands on my first phone that featured a touch display, it might just have been the most exciting possession of all my life.
A way to talk to your friends whenever and wherever? No landline calls, postcards, or unreliable messengers needed?
It felt like tech offered the most optimistic and bright future to me right there.
Thus, I installed WhatsApp, Instagram, and the infamous mobile game Clash of Clans, which I used to watch other people play on their miniature phone screens for hours on end.
And how wondrous it was!
In the beginning, my screen time was very limited, not only due to my parents, but also as a result of a whopping 30GB of possible but veeeery slow data that was meant to last the entire household a whole month.
I’d watch five YouTube videos and get into big trouble for USING UP THE INTERNET!
Can you imagine it?
That’s about as much data volume as most people have access to on their phones non-stop.
Another area, the use of our very small, grizzly TV, is another example of how this limited access made the thing itself all the more wondrous.
My parents forbade me screens most of the day, and when I was finally allowed, the moment was all the more sweet.
Mustering this kind of restraint in my today life would be more than a little unrealistic, as I use my various screens across the house for around about everything, including essential life-management things.
Today I feel much more resentment towards my phone than anything. It has become a menacing factor of distress, overload, and most of all, doom.
And what’s worse, it has me in such a tight grasp, it feels inescapable at times.
But this comparison shows me more clearly than ever: creating scarcity for our easiest tools to release dopamine might be an absolutely essential step in regaining the levels of enjoyment we used to get out of our tech and entertainment systems back in the day.
Takeaway exhibit A: Scarcity.
2. Open Windows of Opportunity
My second underlying issue narrows down to the social factor of it all, even more so: how we’ve all just simultaneously stopped doing ridiculous things together.
Where are the days we could play together with our friends in silly, magical ways?
I remember the old playdate looking something like:
Meet, run up to a room to test out a new Nintendo game - TOGETHER - go outside and wander the streets for hours, switching between a bunch of very real activities like skating, trampoline, bog dwelling, or even HOOLAHOOP.
What I want to convey here is: we used to be kind of good at curating a day or afternoon even.
I don’t think we do that anymore.
To me, time feels so much shorter if it’s mostly consumed by screens and work (alternating), then meeting up in person for 1.5 hours of very strenuous small talk just sitting there.
I cannot any longer.
I want to do fun things again.
Activities.
Arts and crafts are good, although I get a little absorbed with those. What about gaming on the Switch? Doing different fun sports outdoors? Even watching high-quality YouTube comedy together?
God forbid we open a board game too.
GOD FORBID, WE DO SEVERAL OF THOSE ACTIVITIES.
Where this leads me is: maybe we’re not even giving ourselves the chance to make new, gorgeous memories together anymore that we can feel nostalgic about in 20 years.
Maybe the quality and quantity of IRL activities has just so drastically decreased that the good moments are much less frequent now.
The question remains: is it possible to make time for that, or do we just have to make the best of what little we have?
Takeaway 2: Open windows of opportunity for joyful IRL activities, alone but also with friends.
3. Take the Path of Resistance
My latest point somewhat relates to much of what I’ve already said, and it has to do with making an effort.
All those things I mentioned?
Yeah… they kind of have to do with doing hard things.
It seems to me like I have chosen the path of least resistance one or two too many times. That makes even the smallest challenges even harder, tbh.
Unfortunately, all the fun things - yeah? You know them. They take the tiniest bit of effort to get into.
But I’m not used to that anymore.
I’m used to immediate, overwhelming gratification without hurdles or barriers to cross.
That needs to change, I’m afraid.
When simply opening a board game, reading the instructions, and setting up the board becomes too much hassle… it’s no wonder we don’t do nice things anymore.
But the easy stuff… it just doesn’t produce the same, authentic feelings like the real and sometimes slightly more efforty thing.
As long as we can’t get our arses up and active, we won’t find true gratification in our activities.
So yeah, takeaway 3 is probably gonna be: take a path that shows any kind of resistance.
4. Get Spontaneous
Fourth issue: when did we act on a whim the last time?
And no, I do not talk about an impulse buy.
I talk:
Have random idea → think to self, heyyy I could… → just actually do it? → try → maybe fail… maybe not? → maybe look ridiculous → if not joy, get a good story out of it.
Or something like that.
Without listening to that inside voice, it might become really quiet. Take some time to rediscover, even.
But then…
You suddenly take a tram to a random part of town you’ve never been to.
You walk into a storefront you have no idea what it even offers.
You jump into a river by rainfall and have a shopping cart race.
If I’m honest, I don’t think we can even outgrow spontaneousness.
It might seem silly and socially unusual at times.
But why?
That’s when we have the experiences that stick with us. That broaden our horizon and tell us of the world.
So please, if the inside voice tells you something that might sound stupid at first, think of it for a sec.
Think whether it might be worth it.
Takeaway 4: Get spontaneous.
So… Does It Work?
That’s it.
That’s all I can think of right now.
Lucky for you, I’ve been applying and trying hard this summer and can attest: somehow, it worked for me.
Deleted a bunch of apps, met up with people tons and always had real things planned, brought them with me and did, more than thought.
Listened to the inside voice and ended up in ridiculously fabulous situations.
And bad ones.
Those were important too.
It’s all part of life, and I think I got a spark of that back. Of what it feels like to be a small, insignificant human exploring the vast and INSANE wonders of silly little planet Earth.
You don’t need to lock yourself away and be all nostalgic about like 30 years ago.
You can have fun today and be nostalgic about it as soon as TOMORROW!