W. G.The Woven Guild

Merriam-Webster defines nostalgia as "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition". It's quite hilarious to me, how even Merriam-Webster itself can't seem to choose a single definition for nostalgia, for it also defines it as "the state of being homesick".

The quiet loudness of nostalgia perplexes the human soul, but it's a beautiful feeling, or as professional nostalgists may describe it, 'the mirror of all things loved and lost with a thin veil of beauty placed on it, so as to befool the mind and please the soul'. Humans have managed to find solace in something absurdly fictive; what an easy victim man is, eh?

I remember it quite vividly — around this time last year, I was in a different city, making memories which I thought I would treasure my whole life, but looking at them now suffuses a sense of grief all throughout my vulnerable soul. Being in that place was a great and a godawful experience all at once. I remember revelling and I remember wondering why things unfolded the way they did. I remember finding people I knew I'd cherish for as long as I could, and I remember arguing with a boy I thought was vexatious.

That is where nostalgia steps in — the knowing of grief, time-bound pleasure, and defeat — all came wrapped in the silk of idealisation, bows and ribbons of romanticism, and rose-coloured glasses sat atop the lid. On this day, I sit miles away from that city, watching experiences from a screen, a faint voice telling me "this could've been you" every time my heart took a beat.

Nostalgia shapes the human soul, and the human soul shapes society. It's beautiful in poetry, art, philosophy and all, but when you face what you loved once and lost to fate, beauty fades and illusion remains. If you want to have an artist's mind, read a book. But if you want to mirror an artist's soul, pick up the mug that the person who gave you abandonment had gifted it to you as a promise of forever. The finest way to embrace grief is to love it, and the finest way to love grief is to drown yourself in nostalgia.

Time and tide wait for none, they say, but my goodness, have they ever faced a nostalgist?