No·stal·gia
Everyone has his or her weaknesses. Some of mine include breakfast foods, dessert, flannel shirts, and college football. These weaknesses vary from person to person. There are also broad weaknesses, ones that just about every person has. In an era of endless sequels and remakes/reboots, Hollywood has been able to capitalize on ones of those weaknesses: nostalgia.
Dwight K. Schrute, the longtime Assistant (to the) Regional Manager from The Office, once said "Nostalgia is truly one of the greatest human weaknesses, second to only the neck". Hollywood (not to mention box office receipts) would seem to agree with him. The dictionary defines this "weakness" as "a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time".
When I went to see The Incredibles 2 last Thursday, I joked to my parents that I was probably the oldest non-parent in the theater. During the opening sequences of the movie, I had this genuine excitement, that it felt like it was 2004 all over again. To see Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and company back in action was great. For 2 hours, it was like no time had passed and I was 10 years old again. Between The Incredibles 2, Toy Story 3, Finding Dory, and Monsters University, Pixar has done this masterful job of releasing sequels/prequels to movies that initially came out when current young adults were children. And off the record here - The Incredibles 2 just might have been the best of them all. It was a certainly a worthy sequel to my favorite Pixar film.
Nostalgia, of course, goes beyond childhood movies. And it is less watching the movie than it is the feeling that one gets while watching the movie. It's the desire to return to those old memories. This past week at work, a few coworkers got on the subject of trains and train stores. When they got on this topic, my mind went straight to two memories: one, a teacher store that was right next to a Ukrop's (speaking of nostalgia...) that my mom used to take me in a lot. The store had a wooden toy train set that I would always play with while my mom did her shopping. The second memory was this train store in one of the malls nearby. They had a train that would go around the outside of the storefront. But the real gem of the store was all of the Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise. That might have been my favorite store when I was five years old. Sadly, said train store isn't there anymore.
With nostalgia, just mentioning or bring up certain words and phrases can evoke all kinds of memories and feelings. In the instance above, it was train stores. If the town of Cartersville, GA were mentioned, I'd be reminded of the countless summer and holiday trips we'd take there when I was in elementary school, the giant magnolia tree in my great-grandma's front yard, the cool games on my grandparents' computer, and my first encounter with Chick-fil-a and how it was always closed on Sundays. Sites like Buzzfeed have all kinds of posts about what today's kids will never know or what only kids from a certain decade will remember. They actually end up being fairly accurate, too.
Though this might be premature, now that I'm a year and a half removed from college, I've started to feel nostalgic towards my time at Baylor. When I went to a college friend's wedding last summer, it even felt like a reunion seeing so many familiar faces, catching up with everyone, and celebrating our friends beginning their lives together. I haven't visited the campus since graduating, though I am looking forward to that first time coming back and walking around the campus again and going in to the business school, SUB, and my unofficial "spot" in the library. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get to have a Dr Pepper float again. If not, Common Grounds is right by the campus.
At some point or another, we're reminded of past memories, of when times were simpler. When those our times that we enjoyed (and may now even appreciate more in hindsight), it's no wonder we miss them and wish we could go back and spend one more time at the train store, one more time cashing in a coupon for a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut, one more time going to Dr Pepper Hour, or one more time watching the taped Darkwing Duck episode that aired the previous night on Toon Disney (side note: the best part of watching old stuff on tape these days might be the commercials). It's why my siblings and I to this day can bond over inside jokes and memories that happened years ago. This also may be why I enjoy Adele songs like "When We Were Young" or "Million Years Ago".
There's another great quote from The Office that I'm reminded of with the subject of nostalgia. In the finale, Andy Bernard lamented that when he was at Dunder Mifflin, he always found himself missing his days at Cornell. However, when he finally did get a job at Cornell, he found himself missing his days at Dunder Mifflin. He then remarks "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good ole days before you've actually left them". Though I'm not saying that one's childhood or college years are "the good old days," it is to say that we should enjoy the different times in our lives. Odds are we'll find ourselves missing them soon enough.
Dwight K. Schrute, the longtime Assistant (to the) Regional Manager from The Office, once said "Nostalgia is truly one of the greatest human weaknesses, second to only the neck". Hollywood (not to mention box office receipts) would seem to agree with him. The dictionary defines this "weakness" as "a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time".
When I went to see The Incredibles 2 last Thursday, I joked to my parents that I was probably the oldest non-parent in the theater. During the opening sequences of the movie, I had this genuine excitement, that it felt like it was 2004 all over again. To see Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and company back in action was great. For 2 hours, it was like no time had passed and I was 10 years old again. Between The Incredibles 2, Toy Story 3, Finding Dory, and Monsters University, Pixar has done this masterful job of releasing sequels/prequels to movies that initially came out when current young adults were children. And off the record here - The Incredibles 2 just might have been the best of them all. It was a certainly a worthy sequel to my favorite Pixar film.
Nostalgia, of course, goes beyond childhood movies. And it is less watching the movie than it is the feeling that one gets while watching the movie. It's the desire to return to those old memories. This past week at work, a few coworkers got on the subject of trains and train stores. When they got on this topic, my mind went straight to two memories: one, a teacher store that was right next to a Ukrop's (speaking of nostalgia...) that my mom used to take me in a lot. The store had a wooden toy train set that I would always play with while my mom did her shopping. The second memory was this train store in one of the malls nearby. They had a train that would go around the outside of the storefront. But the real gem of the store was all of the Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise. That might have been my favorite store when I was five years old. Sadly, said train store isn't there anymore.
With nostalgia, just mentioning or bring up certain words and phrases can evoke all kinds of memories and feelings. In the instance above, it was train stores. If the town of Cartersville, GA were mentioned, I'd be reminded of the countless summer and holiday trips we'd take there when I was in elementary school, the giant magnolia tree in my great-grandma's front yard, the cool games on my grandparents' computer, and my first encounter with Chick-fil-a and how it was always closed on Sundays. Sites like Buzzfeed have all kinds of posts about what today's kids will never know or what only kids from a certain decade will remember. They actually end up being fairly accurate, too.
Though this might be premature, now that I'm a year and a half removed from college, I've started to feel nostalgic towards my time at Baylor. When I went to a college friend's wedding last summer, it even felt like a reunion seeing so many familiar faces, catching up with everyone, and celebrating our friends beginning their lives together. I haven't visited the campus since graduating, though I am looking forward to that first time coming back and walking around the campus again and going in to the business school, SUB, and my unofficial "spot" in the library. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get to have a Dr Pepper float again. If not, Common Grounds is right by the campus.
At some point or another, we're reminded of past memories, of when times were simpler. When those our times that we enjoyed (and may now even appreciate more in hindsight), it's no wonder we miss them and wish we could go back and spend one more time at the train store, one more time cashing in a coupon for a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut, one more time going to Dr Pepper Hour, or one more time watching the taped Darkwing Duck episode that aired the previous night on Toon Disney (side note: the best part of watching old stuff on tape these days might be the commercials). It's why my siblings and I to this day can bond over inside jokes and memories that happened years ago. This also may be why I enjoy Adele songs like "When We Were Young" or "Million Years Ago".
There's another great quote from The Office that I'm reminded of with the subject of nostalgia. In the finale, Andy Bernard lamented that when he was at Dunder Mifflin, he always found himself missing his days at Cornell. However, when he finally did get a job at Cornell, he found himself missing his days at Dunder Mifflin. He then remarks "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good ole days before you've actually left them". Though I'm not saying that one's childhood or college years are "the good old days," it is to say that we should enjoy the different times in our lives. Odds are we'll find ourselves missing them soon enough.
If you're going to blog about nostalgia, you pretty much have to include a throwback photo or two.
Me and "The Heads" as I called them years ago.
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