Hide and Seek The Meaning of Nostalgia The psychology and philosophy of nostalgia. Posted November 27, 2014 -- Source: Wikicommons Nostalgia is sentimentality for the past, typically for a particular period or place with positive associations, but sometimes also for the past in general, ‘the good old days of yore’. -- At the end of André Brink’s novel, An Instant in the Wind, Adam says, ‘The land which happened inside us no one can take away from us again, not even ourselves.’ Nostalgia combines the sadness of loss with the joy or consolation that the loss is not complete, nor ever can be. Mortal though we are, whatever little life we have snared from the legions of death is forever ours. ‘Nostalgia’ is a portmanteau neologism coined in 1688 by Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer, from the Greek nóstos [homecoming] and álgos [pain, ache]. Nóstos is, of course, the overarching theme of Homer’s -- remembered Zion. Hofer coined ‘nostalgia’ to refer to the homesickness of Swiss mercenaries fighting in foreign lowlands. Military physicians attributed this homesickness, also known as Schweizerheimweh or mal du -- fever, and even, in extremis, death. In the Dictionnaire de musique, Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that Swiss mercenaries were forbidden from singing their Swiss songs so as not to aggravate their nostalgia. Today, nostalgia is no longer looked upon as a mental disorder, but as a natural, common, and even positive emotion, a vehicle for travelling beyond the suffocating confines of time and space. Bouts of nostalgia are often prompted by thoughts about the past; particular places and objects; feelings of loneliness, disconnectedness, or meaninglessness; -- portal, which, for many years, helped me to reminisce about Oscar. I say ‘help’ because nostalgia does have an unexpected number of adaptive functions. Our everyday is humdrum, often even absurd. Nostalgia can lend us much-needed context, perspective, and direction, reminding and reassuring us that our life (and that of others) is not as banal as it may seem, that it is rooted in a narrative, and that -- experiences. No surprise, then, that nostalgia is more pronounced in uncertain times and times of transition or change. According to one study, it is also more common on cold days or in cold rooms, and makes us feel warmer! In that much, nostalgia serves a similar function to anticipation, which can be defined as enthusiasm and excitement for some expected or hoped-for positive event. The hauntings of times gone by, and the -- them back to us. Nostalgia is nothing if not paradoxical. In supplying us with substance and texture, it also reminds us of their lack and, in the reminding, moves us to compensation. Unfortunately, this compensation often takes the form of spending, and marketers exploit nostalgia to sell us everything from music and clothes to cars and houses. It could be argued that nostalgia is a form of self-deception in that it invariably involves distortion and idealization of the past, not least because the bad or boring bits are erased from our memory, -- memoria præteritorum bonorum, ‘the past is always well remembered’. If overindulged, nostalgia can give rise to a utopia that never existed and never can exist, but that is pursued at all costs, sapping all life and joy and potential from the present. For many people, paradise is not so much a place to go to as the place (they think) they came from. Nostalgia can be fruitfully compared with a number of similar or related concepts, including saudade, mono no aware, wabi-sabi, and Sehnsucht. -- JJ Rousseau (1767), Dictionnaire de musique. Zhou X et al. (2012): Heartwarming memories: Nostalgia maintains physiological comfort. Emotion 12(4):700.