the problem with micro nostalgia
"nostalgia is a mind's trick" - taylor swift
We’ve become perpetually nostalgic.
And the type of nostalgia that consumes us collectively is specific— different from past generations’. It’s micro nostalgia: a yearning for in-between moments of our past lives.
I believe that the micro-nostalgia epidemic is a direct consequence of our tendency to chronically document everything.
It used be that we would take pictures only at the big life events—graduations, weddings, birthdays—but now we’re photographing literally the eggs we made for breakfast, a random run at sunset, or a selfie of us rotting in bed (for some reason we did look kinda cute…).
The problem is, you can look back on these random in-between moments of life whenever you want. And then immediately, BOOM: you’re hit a pang of micro nostalgia.
I think that’s unhealthy. Generally, however, I think all nostalgia is unhealthy; it’s a form of self manipulation. (I am, by the way, a deeply nostalgic person.)
Nostalgia (both micro and macro) is simply the memory of something without the anxiety you experienced while you lived that memory.
Nostalgia = memory - anxiety
I didn’t come up with that. I heard BJ Novak say that in an interview in Arm Chair Expert.
But it rang certainly true for me because my anxiety is a fear of things not working out. But when I’m looking back at a memory, an experience my past self had, my present self is here, in the future, all cushy and comfortable and wise knowing that everything is okay. Nothing catastrophic happened. I’m alive. I’m here. All is (more or less) OK.
I wrote about nostalgia in one of my substack essays recently. Actually, most of my essays are about nostalgia in some way or another because I am in fact a girly about to turn 30. And if that doesn’t make a gal nostalgic, I don’t know what does, honey!
I was also on substack reading an essay by Haley Nahman about nostalgia and motherhood. And she quoted author, Sarah Manguso, who talked about how writing in her diary came from this incessant need she felt to document her life so she didn’t forget it.
“I wrote so I could say I was truly paying attention,” Manguso writes. “Experience in itself wasn’t enough. The diary was my defense against waking up at the end of my life and realizing I’d missed it.”
This really struck me. While I don’t think everyone keeps a diary. I know that 90% of Americans have smart phones, and taking pictures is the mainstream form of diary entries. We’re taking pictures of literally everything. Of nonsense! My most recent picture on my camera roll is a raw chicken. And I look back on the photo from last night and I’m like aww that was fun cooking that chicken.
That’s what I’m referring to when i say “micro nostalgia”. I should honestly probably forget about that chicken. The memory of that chicken isn’t serving me. The lived experience of cooking the chicken certainly served me—it brought me joy and, when I ultimately ate it, nutrients of course. If anything, the photo of that slimy pink raw meat only makes me slightly melancholy, acutely aware of the passing of time—that that memory came and went. I’ll never have it again.
Manguso later wrote that when she had a kid she couldn’t keep writing in her diary as much as she did before because she was busy. She reckons with her inability to document—to remember—everything and writes: “the forgotten moments are the price of continued participation in life, a forced indifference to time.”
Meaning that to really live and be present, we have to be willing to pay the price of later forgetting.
I’m okay with forgetting I think.
Really like this piece. My reading of your conclusion implies that to document *is* "to remember" and that by not documenting you must endure the inevitability of forgetting. But you might find this interesting:
About 2400 years ago, Plato wrote "Phaedrus" and included quite a similar argument against the same sort of micro nostalgia you're talking about, and really writing things down in general, but his argument is almost the opposite of yours haha. Here's an excerpt:
[Phaedrus, to Socrates, on the discovery of writing]: "Here, O king, is a branch of learning that will make the people of Egypt wiser and improve their memories. My discovery provides a recipe for memory and wisdom. But the king answered and said ‘O man full of arts, the god-man Toth, to one it is given to create the things of art, and to another to judge what measure of harm and of profit they have for those that shall employ them."
[Socrates, to Phaedrus]: "And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows."
This passage is often used as an example of the common argument that new technologies always have push back (i.e. movies are bad for society -> TV is bad for society -> social media is bad for society) because it seems so obvious to everyone now that he was wrong and short sighted, and that *of course* writing is amazing. It seems Sarah Mansugo, and really all of modern society, aligns more with Phaedrus' perspective, that writing/documentation is the cure for unreliable memory. But perhaps Socrates had a point, and instead of sacrificing our memories we'll have to rediscover them instead. I think the answer is somewhere in the gray area, like it is with most things.
Source for quote: https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/
Lydia, hi! may i say i am so tickled to have discovered your writing here, in this iteration, on substack. you have long been a favorite internet person of mine, and the other day i described you to someone as “that runner influencer. fruit gang. she’s a writer” — they knew you from fruit gang, but i know you for your poignant cultural takes. for your literary humor. for your short stories i read on your website many moons ago and your general good vibes. anyway! i am commenting to say i’m glad i now have you on this platform, too, and that your words and your thoughts often mean a lot to me. giddy to be waving on substack!!!! 👋🏻💕 please keep it coming