Remember when…
Ah, those were the days…
You remember them, the days when everything was better than it is now! Better music, better movies, better everything.
Or…is the lens of nostalgia a great big liarhead? That is the topic of this week’s episode of Men in Gorilla Suits!
We start with a not-so-simple question: Why are people so damn nostalgic? Then we moved on to asking what triggers nostalgia in the Gorillamen. But that’s not enough; after that, it’s on to the bigger triggers of nostalgic feelings.
Nostalgia is something we all engage in, but have you ever wondered if there were benefits to being nostalgic? At the same time, where is the line: can nostalgia actually be damaging?
Christopher saw a quite that interested him:
Nostalgia is the enemy of progress.
Agree, or disagree? Find out what we think. Also, find out how much nostalgia factors into our lives.
After that, we move on to talking about the strangest things we’ve seen people become nostalgic for.
Music, ah — music! What is it about music that seems to closely tied to nostalgia…and why are even the most terrible songs we heard as teenagers still powerful in some way? We dedicate some time to that before moving on to talking about why we seem even more nostalgic than our parents’ generation, which was far more nostalgic than our grandparents’ generation.
Does nostalgia serve a purpose to the aging process? Find out what we think, before we wrap it all up with what we think children born today will be nostalgic for one day.
We’d love to hear what triggers your nostalgic tendencies in the comments below.
And while we’re on the subject of nostalgia, there’s this video:
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For me, certain smells take me back. The smell of chalkboard dust, that rubber smell of a gymnasium. Specific room freshener fragrances and soap perfumes. Also, the smell of house paint and burning leaves. Just thinking about those smells takes me back…
I used to eat chalk.
Smells don’t really do much for me; perhaps because I have a crap sense of smell and live with a flatulent Boston Terrier. It’s seeing things, really — old TV clips, pictures, artifacts from my past. But I suppose that makes sense, as I’m primarily a visual learner.
I laugh every time I think about you eating chalk. (Says the guy who ate paper and erasers.)
I ate my twin in the womb, possibly. I was a weird pregnancy… there were clues. But no nostalgia triggers for that. 😉
Burning leaves…definitely. My dad had this dresser thingy that had a top part that was a compartment that opened with two doors. There were more drawers in there, but he kept pipe tobacco, pipes (including pipes for weed and opium), after shave, and things like that. I can remember the smell very well.
A friend who listened to this sent me a text message and talked about burning smells triggering things with him. Sadly, the most distinct burning smell for him was a airplane crash site — not a pleasant smell. I’ve known a few people who investigated crash sites and…ugh…
I guess we could have talked about negative triggers to the past.