Nostalgia: The Art of Time Traveling
The three reasons I visit the past... but don't dare to stay there.
I’m naturally a nostalgic person.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve documented things out of fear of losing them.
I recorded videos, took photos, kept boxes of mementos from school trips and church outings all out of the hope of being able to look back on them one day.
When I graduated high school I offloaded my laptop data to an external hard drive, then sold the laptop to my friend/neighbor A-A-Ron. A week later I found out something went wrong in the transfer process and I lost all my old pictures and videos from high school and middle school. I was devastated.
Here’s the weird thing and why I’m telling you this- right now life is somehow throwing me into a swirling, unintentional time-travel adventure. It’s CRAZY.
I’ll be sitting in my chair at my desk, one of my favorite places right now (see above) and I’ll get hit by a burst of fresh air from the window and BAM- all of a sudden it’s Spring, 2013 in Lancaster, PA. My mom is in the kitchen prepping dinner, I wake up from a nap on our brown, L-Shaped couch to the sound of soccer balls in the backyard as my brothers yell for me to come play.
I feel like I’m a character in a Kurt Vonnegut novel who has some unknown power to travel through space and time but no ability to control it.
After looking into it, I realize I’m not on a life-altering time-travel escapade…
It’s just the sense of smell and it’s ability to bring forth memories from the past. Nostalgia, ladies and gentlemen.
Over the years I’ve worked on being more present…
… and less in the future/past- but with spring happening, I find myself increasingly nostalgic. I’m thinking a lot about memories that I haven’t thought about in a really long time. Six years, specifically.
This is my first Spring on the east coast since I left for college. I went to school in California, then lived there for another two or so years, so I kinda lost Spring… and Fall. And Winter. For the most part.
Since moving to NYC officially last May, I’ve been able to experience everything about the seasons all over again, including the sights, sounds, feelings and of course, smells (NYC has a lot of smells man… too many smells.) With seasons has come a lot of really random memories that I thought I forgot, which often find their way into my art.
Nostalgia is riddled through everything I make, but especially my music.
My good friend Ethan once said my music has “an ability to make him nostalgic for memories he hasn’t yet experienced” (or something like that- sorry Ethan). That’s a really cool thing to hear, but I have no idea how I do it. All I know is that I have something to say about nostalgia, and how it affects our ability to live life.
I know a lot of people who hate nostalgia and a lot of people who love it. My personal take: it is what you make of it. I think it’s interesting, but I try not to live thinking too much about the past that I miss my present and future.
With that said, here are the 3 main ways I use the power of nostalgia!
For Ideas and Inspiration
I look back on the past through old journals, photos, videos, etc when I’m looking for story ideas or inspiration. I find it’s a quick source to my past inspiration and hopes/dreams. I like to think I have a pretty good memory, and thinking about the past often gives me ideas for how I can shift my life now to be a little more childlike, or to to enjoy the present a bit more. Sometimes it’s nice just to be reminded of an idea I didn’t want to lose- like building a big blanket fort in my own home one day, or creating a charcuterie board of fruit snacks, gummies and candy. Getting older doesn’t mean you have to get old!
For Gratitude
There’s a lot of times I like looking back on old videos or photos just to remember them and think about how grateful I am for them. Or this for example: I had Taco Bell this week (which I do maybe three times a year) and I was reminded of all the times I went there late at night with my older siblings or with friends back in the day. Which sent me down a quick rabbit hole of thinking about those times and what they felt like, or looked like.
Justin Timberlakes’ album, “The 20/20 Experience” is a HUGE throwback that makes me nostalgic for summer, driving with the windows down and playing at parks with my siblings. Ultimately the album simply makes me thankful to be alive and to have those memories.
A lot of things make me thankful for the family I have and the childhood I had. If you had a hard childhood and don’t really like looking back on the past, I’m sorry- that sucks, but I hope everyone has a few memories they can look back on and appreciate.
For Understanding (so I can move forward with my life)
Sometimes you have to go to the past to understand the present, or to know where you want to go in the future.
Personally, I look at life and I see story structure. I see the beginnings of chapters or seasons, the inciting incidents, the plot twists and turns and ultimately, the endings. It’s a weird way to look at life, but it gives me hope and encouragement as well as a peace about things, knowing that life is one continuous cycle of stories.
In my opinion, if you can understand your personal history, you can have a hand in writing the upcoming chapters of it.
Nostalgia is kinda like Minecraft.
I see nostalgia kinda like how I see playing Minecraft- it’s a lot of fun to relive the middle school days, building mansions and searching for diamonds in tunnels until the late hours of the night, but eventually you gotta turn the game off and go to sleep.
The same goes for looking into the past. I don’t know who said it, but I think of that quote that says, “The past is a nice place to visit but a terrible place to live”. I like that quote a lot.
Simply put- Learn from it, appreciate it, and move on with your life.
As one of my favorite philosophers, Søren Kierkegaard, once said:
“Life must be lived forwards and understood backwards”
My Challenge This Week
One of the lessons I’m really trying to learn right now is creating quickly and not overthinking things. I often get in my head about something and my natural instinct is to let things sit so I can revise it and revise it later.
This week, I’m actively fighting against that instinct by creating on a quicker timeline and publishing when I say I will. I can spend two weeks on a video to get it from 95% to 97% quality, or I could post it now, learn from it and move on!
So with that said- I’m posting three videos this week! One on Tuesday, one on Thursday and one on Saturday. You saw it here! I said it! Let you know next week how it goes.
If you see em, maybe leave a comment of encouragement- that would mean a lot.
Some Recs For You: Nostalgia Edition
Something to Listen to: This Playlist I made a while ago that reminds me of Spring/Summer 2013 in Lanc, PA. Does this date me as Gen Z?
Something to Watch: Light and Magic doc-series on Disney+ (if you have it, highly recommend. It’s like instant inspiration and motivation to me!)
Someone to Call: Your Mom, Sibling, Grandma, or anyone who when you look back on your past you’re thankful for them. This is an optional one, but hey maybe it’d make their day.
Something to Do: Think back on your childhood and write down 5-10 things you LOVED to do. They’re sometimes called “energizing habits” now but what are the things that made you feel alive? Find one of those things and carve out some time to do it this week. For me, it’s playing Tennis at a park with my best friend.
Highs and Lows
Bringing this back for this week- here’s some ups and downs in my life lately!
H: I posted this video this weekend and it got really good engagement! I had so much fun creating this record table with my girlfriend Olivia and it turned out GREAT. Thank you OG for the help <3
L: Think I’m getting sick. Or I was this last week- I might be on the come up. Either way, feeling like garbage lately!
H: It was Easter this Sunday- if you celebrated it, Happy Easter! If not, I hope you had a great weekend too. Olivia and I went to church in Manhattan and when we came out, it was sunny and warm and I was very happy about that.
L: Been struggling to focus lately and I could use some of my own advice and try to do less. Focus is saying no to everything except one thing right? I’ll get 1% better this week.
A Quote and A Question
Iconic quote:
Question for you this week (inspired by the movie, “About Time”)…
How would you live your life this week if you were your future self who had traveled back in time to re-live it?
See you next week with an update on those videos, as well as my methods for coming up with new ideas!
Have a great Monday, a fantastic week, and a phenomenal April.
Luh ya,
Jack Ruhl