Ideas About Why We Crave Nostalgia

 At one point does the things we do start to become nostalgic? For me I'd say I felt it at age 20 in very small hints, then more at 22, then a shit ton at age 26. They all pretty much consisted with major events... the first major events of my 20's. Where I was literally being reborn.

From a spiritual and psychological one, I would say for me at least, craving nostalgia brings me great comfort when I'm going through the most uncomfortable and rebirthing into a new person moments.

Hell I crave nostalgia I never even lived through or was too young too remember, or was aware but couldn't participate (hello Myspace!) Okay actually Myspace isn't a good example because its not like I couldn't have gotten onto Myspace, it's just my childhood was strict.

But you hopefully get the point.

The most recent one for me, I went through a nasty breakup and it made me look at my core self, and what do you know I'm craving the decade I was born in but have no memories of. And honestly all the parts of me, my childhood, my teen years, my early twenties. I'm craving it all, wringing all the nostalgia out of the goodness of my memories in them. 

Therefor I think what I need to do is indulge the 90's nostalgia.

Then with 22, I was going to ages 5-10 version of me with nostalgia searching. Really decorating my room pink how childhood me would have dreamed of. Y2K clothing. Experiencing some of the most vivid joy of my life.

Then 20, looking back and realizing my teen years were really gone. Realizing my teen years were nostalgic. Thinking of my Tumblr I had, pre-chronic illness me body feelings, the mustache accessory phase I had (I had suspenders and a ring lmao).

So I think nostalgia can be a spiritual experience, it's dealing with the good parts of memories and reliving through them by thinking of the item of nostalgia (buying it, playing with it, listening, watching, etc). 

Talking to others about nostalgic shared experiences can be a healing process as well. There's no wonder there's such a focus on generations (Zillenial here, Millenial/Gen Z, yes I don't fit in either 100%). 

However I do wave a hand of caution towards going into your nostalgia. Know that it's become capitalized with the rise of TikTok. Capitalism has gotten its grimy fingers on it and waved things above our heads shouting nostalgia from the rooftops. So be careful about your purchase and attention consumption.

It's also good to make sure you stay grounded in reality, remember we cannot go back in time. Move in the present with gratitude and excitement, but also cherishing the current moment. Our time now will be nostalgic to us later on (or at least I'm hoping it will be!). 

A Birthday

 What I'm Grateful for the Past Year

the spring budding blooms of my sociality

the way the sun kisses my face amongst commutes

the choices, though endless, are present

bags gathered, an onion atop a post

the daily synchroneities when one slowly ponders

the crisp sound of a page being turned

the self-parenting prides in my choices, however minute

exploring and mapping the vastness of my creations

the clutching with whitened knuckles upon hope

the needles inside my bones twisting but never breaking

the taking of my ink to a new page

curiosity holding my hand guiding me through all

the way I am shifting the mask away

the paths of all tied together creating

the way my lips part to reveal my soul smile

another year blessed to me 

Being Richly Human

 What is the human experience?

Some will say love, others pain. Perhaps it is neither or both. In the same fold you have why do we exist as humans? Why is there life?

I don't think anyone knows the answers because there is no answer, instead the answer is we find this purpose within ourselves and that is the purpose. Self-love and self-knowledge. Knowing how to love yourself and loving to know about yourself.

How are you under pressure? Do you like your toast crunchier or softer? How do you deal with the darkest parts of yourself? When did you learn your first curse word?

We spend the most times stuck with one person. Ourselves. Even if we never live alone or have hours of time stuck up in an office by ourselves we still have our minds. It's impossible to share with anyone the depth of our minds, our mindset, our likes, dislikes, the unique perspective and perception we have on every single thing in the universe.

So why don't some people learn about themselves? Why do some even fear being all alone, especially with their thoughts? I can agree, too much of this isn't good, but many of us are deprived of not having enough alone time.

Why don't some people love themselves? And not in the cheesy way of buying yourself a new gadget or indulging in dessert. How many of us look in the mirror at our patterns, our habits, our hangups, our pains, our wrong doings against others, and face them head on?

Most of us think being rich means financial wealth. But how are we happy or claim to be ourselves if we do not know ourselves (not fully because we never will because there is so much to know and we are always evolving) or love ourselves? 

No matter who leaves us, abandons us, abuses us, breaks us down, forgets us...we are always there. We can push ourselves down, gaslight ourselves into forgetting everything, distract ourselves out the wazoo, but we're still there.

Every part of us. Your childhood self. Your teenage self, and so on and so on as you age and until your physical body is gone. Why do we shun these parts of ourselves? They're not just stuck in the past, we take them with us wherever we go.

If we refuse to heal these parts of ourselves we are neglecting the potential wisdom that lies in the healing. We will never be fully healed such as I said earlier we will never fully know ourselves, because evolution. New scars appears, some scars fester back up. Life happens.

How do we expect ourselves to ever devote ourselves to something (work, person, art) when we can't even have devotion for ourselves?

There is such rich fulfilment in acknowledging ourselves and making a pact, that we're not going to continue on with life without loving and learning about ourselves. I am not saying this is easy either. Actual true self-love, can be difficult at times, especially at the beginning and especially when you face your shadow self. But I promise you this, it is the most worth it.

This is a journey. No one has a map. But you have your intuition, your self-love, your self-devotion, and finally what will start to show itself: your pure joy.

Hope in a Fragile World

It seems to me I am fighting for hope on a daily level. There are hills and valleys throughout the day of the range of my fears and emotions. It can be predicted by the media I consume or the events of my day. It is always wavering- yet there is always a guarantee of hope.

I often must remind myself of the hope, especially in a world that is focused on the clicks and views of desperation and fear. A world that does not want you to consume and be consumed by art. A world that would rather you dig through the mud and bury your art. That does not seek you to love but chase after things out of greed.

I did a rebirthing ritual last year that turned my world upside down. I made a sigil and ended up getting that symbol tattooed on myself. Because I wasn't just rebirthed simply one time, it is a daily occurrence. It happens when I finish a book. I am not the same woman after having a conversation with a friend. Or watching a sunset. 

And like being rebirthed, our hope can be re-sparked. It is a daily fire we must tend to. Every single article of chaos and destruction douses the fire, but every time we laugh can flick the flames back to life. 

Hope does not mean we do not struggle. It simply means we have something to keep our eye on as we are fighting. It gives us reason to fight in the first place. The fire warms us, heals us. 

The destruction wins when we give is. When we let it extinguish our flame and we wallow in the misery of life. Daily we must get back up after life has knocked us down. Hope is not something we wait for, but simply something we choose. 

We choose it by smiling at nature around us, by taking out our paint brushes, by surrounding us with other people who have chosen to tend to their fires. 

So today, tend to your fire.

Why I Don't Have "Active" Social Media

 Well what the f do I mean by active social media? Let's just cut right into it.

By active here's what I mean: social media sites that focus on their snappy fast scroll feed engagement, you usually aren't reflecting on the past things you've liked or shared or if you do there's no organization structure and that is not the purpose of the site either.

For example: Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, BlueSky, X, Threads...

Now I'll be upfront and say I do have a burner FB (marketplace/work only). 

But really all I have now are the following:

• Pinterest (used for collecting information and visual data to help my art, I rarely ever engage in the comments) I've trued so many alternatives to try and escape the ads.
• Reddit (collecting data and learning) Got to be careful with this because of the negativity and news on front page. 
• Youtube (while this is considered a social media I see it more like a blog posting platform, however I do still struggle with getting sucked down Shorts and I know, it's basically TikTok).
• Snapchat (I try to only have it to where it's my friends and just our bubble)

So I have one to get inspired and learn, one to collect, one to again learn and hopefully inspire, and one to keep in contact with my friends. I've thought about getting rid of Snapchat before, but I communicate with friends on there that really aren't texters. 

Why don't I have the others?

I Value My Time

Not to say that people on the platforms don't, but for me it is a giant time suck when I used to have profiles on active social media. It was so easy to just keep scrolling.

I Was Sick of the Numbness

Just fifteen minutes and the numbness and brain fuzz would start to hit. And it wouldn't leave as soon as I closed the app.

I Wanted to Be Liked

Ah, online validation, not the best for a crumbling confidence and with the inner child in control of the steering wheel. And the more I used these sites, the most I would second guess myself. 

Self-Control Seemed Impossible

To even just take the start of a social media break seemed impossible and if I got through it, say a month or a few weeks, I felt amazing but only to soon return.

They're Loud

Now I will say (and especially because of how horrific the ads have gotten and amount of screenshots of other social sites) that Pinterest can be loud. That's why unless I'm looking for something specific, then I'm usually on the site only for small chunks of times.

The Fun is Usually Boring

We are fed what to like on these apps. Bite after helpless bite. To where we're mainly consuming content we don't even care for? So much pointlessness.

The Need to Be Perfect

I still to this day struggle to take photos without filters. Imagine saying that twenty years ago. 

I'd Rather Get Community Elsewhere

Not to say I don't have online friends, because I do and I met them when I had the "active" social medias. But I feel like I found my homies and didn't need to keep looking. There's also a heavy leaning from me to now get out into the physical community, especially as I'm living more authentically.

They Encourage You to Share Your Entire Life

The term influencer honestly makes me cringe. I mean it seems awesome, you being paid to just be you? But that's not what is actually happening you're a paid ad. We need to have better boundaries with how we use the internet, especially if complete strangers are accessing our every thought.

I Wasn't As Mindful

I felt like I lived a portion of my life on these sites. Even my thoughts seemed narrower, as in I felt more closed minded when it came to what thoughts creatively I allowed in. 

Too Negative

The news, the click bait, the gossip and back stabbing, the harmful pranks, the bullying, the social standards, the cliches, the cliques, the FOMO, the ghost notifications, the pressure to edit, the pressure from Capitalism to need to consume and buy to be happy. 

What Blooming in the Dark Means to Me

 My personal catchphrase that I came up with in ~2018 has really hit close to home this year.

But what does it mean?

We all have the capability to bloom in the dark. But choosing to bloom in a personal choice. Others are waiting for the sun to get them to bloom, only to find disappoint soon after.

There is something to be said after you grieve what once was, to choose to spread out and GROW. You don’t let your circumstances push you down. You fight to break through the surface of dirt.

It’s not easy, it never was. But it is 1000% worth it. In the end, you choose and trust yourself to get you there. Sure you may have help or inspiration, but only you can rise up, because it’s up to only you.

Blooming in ones life is something beautiful regardless if it is in the sun or the dark, but there is something to be said about when it’s the dark. Most do not go that route. Most like taking shortcuts and doing the TDLR on blooming.

But cheating on blooming can cause the petals to fall earlier than you want. Autumn is inevitable, we can’t always be on the upwards our entire life. Life is, well complicated.

But we can choose to bloom for ourselves, all you have to do is choose to not settle. Don’t settle for being stuck in the dirt. Choose to dettach from where you currently are and identity with what is above and your potential (your new reality).

The Start of a Journey to Low Tech

 This past Summer upon my adventures into the Pinterestophere I was pinning images related to nostalgia. One of those categories happened to be tech nostalgia. I grew up in the 2000's of pre-smart phone tech when you had gadgets dedicated to few purposes and made of heartier materials than what is used now.

It got me thinking and I found myself in the low tech "trend". Those who were tossing their smart phones for a notebook and flip phone, Google maps for a GPS, paper books over kindles, and old tvs over smart ones. I found myself pulled in.

My plan is to get a flip phone that I use just for emergencies but will use and have on me when I want to go hours or days without a smart phone. I plan on getting a point and shoot camera again that will be on me more often than not. Or who knows maybe I can get my antique collection of cameras working? However those would for sure need a red room and that I am lacking in the space for and the funds to get them done by someone else.

I plan on getting a tv with a built in dvd player and building upon my small dvd media collection. My book collection is always slowly expanding regardless. I have a Neo Writer and have used it in past however I am more wary about it failing with any work if I don't offload right away. 

I intentionally chose an older theme for this very blog because of all the choices with older ones and its an important reminder to myself. Old doesn't mean not usable or outdated. Sometimes older tech still outweights what new tech can do. I bought a 2007 or 2008 handycam for my vlog because of the aesthetics I want it to have and there just seems something so much more fun about holding something that just has one purpose and it does it well.

I hope to one day get one of those new but older looking monitors just for the look of it as I do want to protect my eyes still which is a benefit of modern technology and pixelization. I do not plan on stopping use of my iphone or other modern tech, however I want to change the way they affect my day to day life. I want to use my notebook more, read physical books more, and be more present in my daily life with the world and nature.

Low tech offers a hand out to give me more gratitude in my life and the things I own. I want to set forward with reusing and buying/borrowing second hand as much as possible. I've had too much of a reliance of the instant capitalism system that is currently in-saturated our world.