On Nostalgia

And other such things

Hello, all! It's been a bit since I first posted...good gracious, it's kind of hard to start this. I feel like John Watson, trying to start his blog. "Nothing ever happens to me..."

Only in my case, that's not true.
I'm a bit of an idealist (if by "a bit", the English language means "a lot"). I find interest in anything, if I take the time to try. Often, I don't take the time to try, really, but I'm almost never really bored. As a writer, it's easy to disappear into another world when I am bored. But just as it's easy to get lost in another world, I also find myself getting lost in the past, swept up in some big, unexplainable feeling known collectively to the world as nostalgia.
I asked my dad what his definition of "nostalgia" was. He answered:

"The thought of or longing for the past."

Which, to my delight, was a much simplified version of Dictionary.com's definition:

"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: a nostalgia for his college days."

I find that nostalgia in itself is very easy to evoke in myself. A great many things can trigger it. As I sit here listening to Phil Collin's Strangers Like Me from the Disney movie Tarzan, I find myself in the midst of many, many fond emotions, all directed towards my best friend. Connected with memories from when I was somewhere around eleven or twelve years old and dancing about her living room to the music, to the laughable situation in which we found ourselves hopelessly lost while driving to a Bible study, and so turned up the music in her car - it gives me an odd contented sensation. But I wonder about nostalgia. Everybody experiences it...the triggers can be wide and varied. Today, for example: I was saying goodbye to a friend who had visited from another state, and as she said goodbye, she pulled back and whispered,
"Just one last thing - you were fantastic. Really fantastic. And you know what? So was I."Those are the last words of Doctor Who's protagonist before he regenerates into his tenth form (I'll blab on about the explanation of Doctor Who later). As stated before, I love that show, and it elicited both tears and laughter from me when mixed with the thought that I wouldn't see her for a while.
Another trigger could be as simple as the word "ducks" with one friend or the name "Sir Fred" - don't ask, inside jokes are odd - with another.
But why is it so easy for us to remember, dwell on, and get stuck in the past?


People say "hindsight is 20/20", but I think that's only true in some instances. Looking back, I can see where the guy I liked was a player, when I should have said something to a friend and didn't, and how I wouldn't have made that choice had I known what I know now. But when we're not looking at our mistakes, we tend to look at the past through rose-colored glasses.


When I think of happy times, I don't think of the surrounding circumstances. I remember meeting with friends and laughing. I don't remember feeling excluded at times, or the fact that that year was utterly miserable and I didn't tell anyone, or the guilt I carried with me at that point. I remember laughing. I remembered smiling at a joke. I remember a hug and a warm cup of coffee. Not the bad.


Nostalgia is a mental filter we willingly put on ourselves - subconsciously editing out the bad and touching up the good. The joke seems funnier. The laughter heartier. The coffee more delicious. The friends closer. My nostalgia makes my memories brighter, and that's why it's so easy to get lost in the good memories of the past.


Humans are an odd species, you know. They're the only creatures on Earth who try to live both in the past and the future all at once, and ignore the present. But it's hard to see the present in the rosy light of nostalgia or our imagination about the future?

So what makes the present worth it?

Simple, really.


We're in the present. Unfortunately, we cannot go back to those spun-gold memories that nostalgia provides, or skip forward to the rosy visions of the future. We are here, in the present, living for now. Not living in a time not our own is hard. But the concept of living for now is prevalent everywhere you turn.

"Today share one more smile, today pray one more time, today drink one more tear, today live one more life, today see one more dream. Who knows, there may be no more tomorrow."
-Unknown

"Sometimes there is no next time, no time outs, no second chance, sometimes it's just now or never."
-Unknown

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."
-Albert Einstein

"Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself."
-Matthew 6:34

Today is worth more than tomorrow, because tomorrow is not yet here. Today is worth more than yesterday, because yesterday has been lived and discarded. Nostalgia is pleasant at times. Hope is admirable. But to live today, in the present...that is extraordinary. Because nobody does that anymore.

-Sorry for the rambling,
Jess

Hello!!!

My name is Jess!
This is very odd for me. I've been meaning to start a blog for quite some time, but the actuality of sitting down and beginning it has always quite eluded me. Who really knows what will happen on this? But I suppose, for those of you who don't know, I should say something about me.

All right, then. First things first.

I'm a Christ-follower, first and foremost. People tend to classify my faith as Christian, but with so many horrible connotations that go with the word today, I like to identify my faith as what I do, not what people like to stereotype me as. So, yes, I'm a Christ-follower. Certainly not the best. I fail. I'm human. Thank God that I have grace to cover that. I've grown up in a God-centered household. I have a sister and two brothers, and my parents are still together, which is a wonderful thing that God has blessed me with.

I'm a Communications major at a community college in Texas. I want to teach, probably on the college level, but as God has not confirmed that, we shall see. What God has told me is that I will be assisting my best friend Moriah in building her film studio network. If you want to know more about that (though I'm certain I'll blog about it quite a bit as it will be a huge bit of my life), I soon post her blog link. I don't know what it currently is. But that will be my life's work.

As for interests outside the faith-based and academic...I'm a nerd. You should just know that up front. I love Sci-Fi and Fantasy. There are so many things to love. My favorite science fiction interests are:

• Doctor Who (and believe me, I will rail on about people who ruin canon!)
• The Avengers (cinematic universe, I apologize, but I haven't read the comics.)
• Stargate (SG-1 and Atlantis. Don't even try Universe.)
• Sanctuary (please. Just go look it up. It was on the Syfy channel for some time.)
• Star Wars (and I like the newest ones. So sue me.)
• Star Trek (Voyager is my favorite, though I have to say that the others are amazing. And the new movies? Yes. Yes, those are great, too.)

So a lot of that. As for fantasy, it basically revolves around a few series.

• The Lord of the Rings
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• The Hunger Games (Not really fantasy, but I love it anyway.)
• The BBC's Merlin
• I was going to say The Inheritance Cycle, but it really ended very badly.

As for BBC's Sherlock, I'm not sure where it fits in. But I love it, too.

Any and all of the above will be blogged about in copious amounts (also, I like big words and will not define them unless I just find them fascinating). But I will post spoiler warnings.

Other activities I enjoy are acting, taking/teaching Taekwondo (ATA), and singing (quite badly and off-key, mind you, but when I'm alone, I become a world-famous rockstar).

But while I do love those, my biggest interest in itself is writing. I love to write. I've been working on a young adult novel for about four years, and I'm tired of procrastinating and am ready to get it done. Hopefully, I should be sending it off to publishers within the next year.

Other random facts:

• I tend to embarrass myself quite a bit more than need be.
• I am willing to join in on most any sort of fun. 
• I will never ever drink or smoke or take drugs, so that is that.
• I'm not terribly funny, as in witty and quick to the punchline, but I have been told that I myself am an amusing person.
• I love horses, dogs, and most furry things (though when it comes to cats, I am slightly wary and slightly disarmed by their furriness).
• I have an overwhelming love of glittery things.
• This blog post is too long.

You honestly didn't need to know so many useless facts about me, so I shall say fare thee well, and I hope you haven't been too bored by this. I hope to make any and all other posts more interesting.

So long!
-Jess, who is quite unused to this.