#85 Why we love nostalgia

I was chatting with a friend a couple of days back and we discovered our shared interest in biology. We were discussing the fascinating world of microbiology and I couldn't help but talk about my time as a bioengineering student. If not for the pressure to earn, I would've become a professor teaching micro or molecular biology. But life had other plans. I have a teeny-tiny bit of regret, but all I felt that evening was not regret, but nostalgia.

Why do we feel warm and comfy when we're nostalgic? Have you ever thought about that? I had this question after the conversation and here's what I think:

You're a different person every second of your life. Your actions and decisions constantly create different versions of you. But you hardly notice that because they’re tiny changes. But, what you see or recognize is how you were for a period of time in your past. You consolidate those phases by applying labels like 'school’, ‘college’, ‘first job’, ‘photography’, ‘drinking every day’, ‘traveling the country’, and so on.

And, when you remember a fragment from that phase while talking to a friend, or while digging through the attic, you get transported to those days. You think about you and the people around you. You laugh, cry, or feel ashamed of how you were in the past. Nostalgia is essential to life that way. It makes you reflect on your life during the most unexpected time.

As we grow old, we start missing pieces of ourselves. Like tissues and cells, we lose our past with time. And, nostalgia makes us look back into those missing pieces. And it is special because each of those pieces tells us how far we’ve come (or how far we’ll have to go).