“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” — Heraclitus, c. 500 BC
Do you remember that gigantic hill you once sledded down as a kid? When the snow was so deep, the sled so fast, and the hill so steep when you had to climb it again?
If you went back for another run in recent years, it probably lost its luster. It was neither quite as tall nor as steep and the snow was a little thinner.
And just like that, your perfectly saccharine childhood memory was dashed into a million snowflakes, never again seeming as legendary as it was in your mind.
You can thank nostalgia for that.
The origin of the word nostalgia comes from two Greek roots: nóstos, meaning “homecoming,” and álgos, meaning “pain.”
When the term was first coined in the 1600s, it was associated with soldiers abroad who were depressed, experiencing a kind of homesickness. Their present pain was associated with being separated from home.
Even though we think of nostalgia as something wrapped in warm and happy memories, in many ways, nostalgia is equally laced with the heartache of reality.
Not too many years ago, I had the chance to return to the bar where I spent my 21st birthday. I thought I’d capture at least a little bit of the magic and wonder of that evening. You might say I was feeling nostalgic.
Cornwall’s in Kenmore Square had all of the hallmarks of a fine British pub: low ceilings, tankards hung from beams, and John, the owner-chef, making his signature burgers behind the grill. You had to descend about 7 or 8 steps to go inside, where you were welcomed with a sense of warmth and friendliness.
Nearly 20 years ago, John and Pam had to relocate Cornwall’s across the square after the development of the Hotel Commonwealth began. The new location had the same vast collection of beer, the same recipe for the burger laden with oats and onion, with John in his chef’s apron and Pam working the room. But it felt antiseptic and impersonal. It just wasn’t the same.
In the meantime, other stalwarts of Kenmore Square disappeared. Planet Records, India Quality, Nemo’s, the Rathskeller, and many other establishments just closed up. And like that, the square was completely different.
Oh sure, it still housed an MBTA station. It marked the intersection of Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue and the eastern tip of Boston University’s campus. But it didn’t feel the same.
As Heraclitus observed, it wasn’t the same river any longer. Time forged on and changed the façade of the buildings as much as it changed the clientele within them.
Nor was I the same.
I had experienced much more, seen much more, grown much more. I was a different person.
That memory of my 21st birthday in the warm glow of the pub, surrounded by friends and colleagues, would be forever burned in my brain. But I couldn’t recreate it. I couldn’t go back.
In his posthumous autobiographical novel You Can’t Go Home Again, Thomas Wolfe wrote:
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood…back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame…back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”
Nostalgia can be wonderful when it helps us forge happy memories of the past. But it’s also a mask that blinds us to the changes made by time as it marches ever onward, affecting the people and places that we like to think of as static and permanent.
Or, the diametric opposite of progress.
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