What truly is nostalgia? What makes a person nostalgic? Why can nostalgia just break someone down and make them so incredibly happy at the same time? Well I don't have the full answer, and I don't think we'll really ever have the full answer, but I do have some ideas. The YouTube video by Vsauce titled "Why Do We Feel Nostalgia?" is what brought up this whole idea in the first place. Nostalgia comes from the greek words, "nostros" which means returning home, and "algos", which means pain. At first, nostalgia was a very serious medical condition. It affected soldiers, and made them want to return and long for their home so bad, they would break down. So the cure for it was, just sending them home. Because nostalgia really is just simply all about you. Your memories, your past, who you once were, and it makes you into who you are now. So why are we nostalgic for our past, but not what just happened a minute ago? Or what you ate for lunch yesterday? Well in Vsauce's video he mentions the Reminiscence bump in the Lifespan Retrieval Curve (graph below). The reminiscence bump is all about how crucial the ages from 15-30 are, because they shape you into who you become. You become most fond of these memories, and keep them to you as close as possible. We're the most nostalgic for those memories, so why? Well it's simply the time you're maturing, you're doing crazy things you could never think of doing in your adult years. You're not worried about that business proposal, you're out going to parties, dances, living your younger years. Through high school, through college, and late 20's. It's crazy to just think, one day, where I am now, I'm no longer gonna be at. I'm going to have a job, married, kids, become old, and be nostalgic for my life right now. It's insane to think that right now, I'm living in the good old days, and the most I can do about it is just, embrace it. We have to accept the fact that we aren't going to stay in the same place we are, we're going to have to grow up, we're going to have to become old, and one day die. A crazy concept about nostalgia is the fact that, our memories we tend to be nostalgic for tend to be picked, and we sometimes remember things better, than what they actually were. An example of this is from Abe Lincoln. He visited his childhood home, with the fond memories attached to it, but somehow he was disappointed. "My childhood’s home I see again and saddened with the view, and still as memory crowds my brain, there’s pleasure in it too." A quote from Abe Lincoln himself. It's sort of a troublesome idea to think about because we want to believe the things we want to hold on to and think of the good old days, could've been actually not that good at all. Or was it actually good and we just took those days for granted? We also remember things, that actually never happened. We become nostalgic over something in our childhood, when it never happened? Are any of our memories actually completely true? Nostalgia can be such a sensitive topic to write about, because it's really just all about you. I think we should take nostalgia, and look at the things we truly are nostalgic for. What we took for granted back then. We should take that, and reflect on it. And really live each day, like it's the good old days. Because one day, they will be, and we won't regret anything.
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One hard concept I think we'll never actually understand is the meaning of life. Like why are we even here? What is the purpose? Is there even a purpose at all? Are we just searching for answers we'll never find, or never have been actually there. I think as humans, we search for answers, we thrive for them. I mean we just keep going, and going, and going. Looking for answers. I mean why is it so hard for us to just accept the fact that, we just might never know everything, I mean how could we? Like for example, think of us on earth, what if earth never existed? Okay so the galaxy would still exist, but what if that was gone too? What if the entire universe was gone? There would just be nothing. Completely nothing. Or would there be? The reason I'm talking about this is because, answers are our reality. But one concept that came up in my psych class lately is, is there even a reality? Do we truly have a reality? What makes something a reality? How do we even know the answers are right, when we don't even know if our reality, is the reality? This may sound all over the place I know, but I'm getting there. One crazy theory that I find really interesting is Solipsism. It's the belief that you are the only true, real person and everything else around you, your friends, work, everything, is just your imagination. It sounds crazy right? You think that people who truly believe this might be insane, but how do you know? You just don't. You believe. This whole reflection could just be your imagination, or a simulation, and you would never know. So do we even know anything, in the first place? In 2002, a lady shot and killed her landlord, because she believed she's in a simulation and her crimes were not real. This is something called the Matrix defense. By using this defense, she was found, not guilty. By reasons of insanity of course. Because the opposite view, called realism is more healthy. It's something we all share. Believing that things your not there to experience, on the outside world are real. Like stars, and rocks, and life would continue to exist, even when you're not there. But how do we truly, just know that? You cannot know, realism is true. All you can do, is believe. Being a realist is way more convenient for us, so we choose to stick with that idea. That reality is real. I think exploring mind boggling questions like this is kind of fun. It's something that we all should do from time to time. Question your reality. I mean how do we even know we see the same color red? It's scientifically proven that we all perceive our senses differently. So how do we know that even our colors are the same. That the color red, is the color red. I mean, color is just an illusion that is created, inside of our heads. Do we even hear sound the same way? Your reality, could be a completely different reality to someone else. So making my conclusion, I think our true reality, the purest we could get of an answer, is something way beyond our comprehension. We're just not cut out for it and I think, we will never, ever, have an answer to what reality is. We'll never know everything, but yet we keep searching for it. The question, what is the meaning of life, may just never be answered. Or maybe there just isn't an answer. Our reality is just our phaneron. Our existence filtered by how we perceive our senses, and the reasoning of an entity. It's what's relevant to us. It's merely just a perception of what exists. We don't know what exists out of our own perception. To you, what you see and believe, is true, but to you. Your understanding of reality is just your own phaneron. How do we know if people we call insane, are insane, if it's just their own truth? We all have our own reality, so for that reason, we just can't simply change it, how we perceive everything is unique, we'll just never have a full answer on what reality is.
What truly is nostalgia? What makes a person nostalgic? Why can nostalgia just break someone down and make them so incredibly happy at the same time? Well I don't have the full answer, and I don't think we'll really ever have the full answer, but I do have some ideas. The YouTube video by Vsauce titled "Why Do We Feel Nostalgia?" is what brought up this whole idea in the first place. Nostalgia comes from the greek words, "nostros" which means returning home, and "algos", which means pain. At first, nostalgia was a very serious medical condition. It affected soldiers, and made them want to return and long for their home so bad, they would break down. So the cure for it was, just sending them home. Because nostalgia really is just simply all about you. Your memories, your past, who you once were, and it makes you into who you are now. So why are we nostalgic for our past, but not what just happened a minute ago? Or what you ate for lunch yesterday? Well in Vsauce's video he mentions the Reminiscence bump in the Lifespan Retrieval Curve (graph below). The reminiscence bump is all about how crucial the ages from 15-30 are, because they shape you into who you become. You become most fond of these memories, and keep them to you as close as possible. We're the most nostalgic for those memories, so why? Well it's simply the time you're maturing, you're doing crazy things you could never think of doing in your adult years. You're not worried about that business proposal, you're out going to parties, dances, living your younger years. Through high school, through college, and late 20's. It's crazy to just think, one day, where I am now, I'm no longer gonna be at. I'm going to have a job, married, kids, become old, and be nostalgic for my life right now. It's insane to think that right now, I'm living in the good old days, and the most I can do about it is just, embrace it. We have to accept the fact that we aren't going to stay in the same place we are, we're going to have to grow up, we're going to have to become old, and one day die. A crazy concept about nostalgia is the fact that, our memories we tend to be nostalgic for tend to be picked, and we sometimes remember things better, than what they actually were. An example of this is from Abe Lincoln. He visited his childhood home, with the fond memories attached to it, but somehow he was disappointed. "My childhood’s home I see again and saddened with the view, and still as memory crowds my brain, there’s pleasure in it too." A quote from Abe Lincoln himself. It's sort of a troublesome idea to think about because we want to believe the things we want to hold on to and think of the good old days, could've been actually not that good at all. Or was it actually good and we just took those days for granted? We also remember things, that actually never happened. We become nostalgic over something in our childhood, when it never happened? Are any of our memories actually completely true? Nostalgia can be such a sensitive topic to write about, because it's really just all about you. I think we should take nostalgia, and look at the things we truly are nostalgic for. What we took for granted back then. We should take that, and reflect on it. And really live each day, like it's the good old days. Because one day, they will be, and we won't regret anything.
Why do we view our lives as boring? What leads us to the conclusion that our lives are too repetitive and simplistic. I was watching a video last night that talked about this exact thing. In a YouTube video titled "Why your life is so boring" on the channel Better Ideas, they talk about how you compare your day to day life, to somebody else's highlight reel. I think this idea is actually quite true. To make sense of this, lets start from the beginning of your day. From the moment you wake up and lift your head off your pillow, to the moment you put it back down at night, your life is a pattern. You wake up, probably feeling a little grungy, and do your morning routine. You make yourself breakfast, have coffee, brush your teeth, etc.. Soon you leave your house to go to work, school, run errands, nothing too out of the box. Then you get back, lounge around for a bit, maybe watch some Netflix, do some more work, and then go to sleep. This is basically, becoming your normal. So instead of traveling and discovering the world, life is really more about the day to day experience and encounters. But is this necessarily a bad thing? Well, no. We tell ourselves it is though, by comparing our day to day life, with somebody else's highlight reel. A highlight reel is all the good moment's in other peoples lives like, marrying the love of their lives, traveling to Bora Bora, moving to France. Soon you start longing to change your daily cycle and you think, "well maybe in the future," and continue to live your day to day life. So the whole point basically is, don't compare your behind the scenes life to everybody else's molded perfect life, social media posts, and highlight reels. The things you see aren't their entire lives, it's only 10% of it. A quote I liked from this video was "A good life is just a series of good days," because it's realistic and true. You're life isn't going to be Yachts and Hawaii all the time. So make the most of what you have now. We see our lives as boring, and uneventful, but that's because all we do is hope for a better tomorrow. If we don't like our current situation, we place all of our frustration and pain onto the hope of a better tomorrow. If we look into how our lives are set up, and where we're going, it can be a little depressing I know. I mean we're born, we grow up and attend school, work really hard to get into a decent college, work really hard to get a decent job, work really hard to live a decent life, and all we do is work and work for a target in life. Soon we finally retire, but then we're almost too old to do anything? So what's the point. But life isn't about traveling and doing these amazing, once in a lifetime opportunities. It's about how we live today, on repeat. How we live on a daily schedule. How we make the use of the time we have. Your life isn't boring, it's just normal. Everybody feels this way. Even Elon Musk, but instead of daydreaming about vacationing to some tropical island, it's Mars. So next time you catch yourself in this daze of just wishing and promising yourself a better life, remind yourself that nothing is wrong with how you are now. And ask yourself, how can you make the best use of your time now? How can you take advantage of that aspect in your life?
Pressure and Society vs. Teens in 2019 In 2019, pressure on teens in today's society is higher than it's ever been. An amazing article I'll refer to throughout this, is an article written by Developmental Science. The link can be found by clicking any image below. In this article they talk about how teens (or Gen Z) are experiencing extreme levels of stress. Some statistics I'll also be showing are from the American Psychological Association. This sort of topic is something that I feel extremely passionate about because it's not only affected me, but so many people around me as well. Last year, was an extremely rocky year for me. I had so many things going on at once, from family, to managing my extra curricular activities, to finding the time to keep my grades up. As things got worse, and worse, I ended up just, giving up. Simply I gave up. That didn't help any either, because then it really showed on my grades, and it will forever affect me and take away opportunities I could've gotten otherwise. This right here, is the problem. People will say, "it's because of those phones!" or, "social media is ruining our teens!" but, that may only be a small fraction of it. Yes we put so much onto ourselves for trying to look like we live the perfect life on social media, but it's the expectations society sets on us. Not Kim Kardashian's figure, not Selena Gomez's magazine cover, but the standards society wants us to meet. There are 3 main things that society judges us by, just 3 things. Grades, GPA, and SAT scores. Sure you may have an amazing, outgoing personality. Sure you've learned so much from experiences alone. But do you have the SAT scores to match it? Do you have the perfect grades? Perfect GPA? The stress comes from the pressure set on teens to reach these standards, and to be the very best. But we're convinced, as a society, that these standards are okay. That this is a valid way to determine who's going to make it. In Developmental Sciences article, they also show that Gen Z is the least likely to agree that their mental health is great. They also show that Gen Z is also the most stressed about problems in today's society like mass shootings, or climate change (statistics in charts above). Why is Gen Z the most stressed about these problems, instead of overall adults? I want you to think about that. Why aren't overall adults as concerned as Gen Z? That's because we know what's next. They affect our generation more than any. Oceans rising, mass shootings, this whole feud between Russia and the United States, it's all things that we're going to have to deal with and try to fix. Soon we're gonna be the teachers, the President, the jobs left behind for us to fill. Watching them get worse and worse worries not only us but everybody. As teens, our opinions in these topics are seen as stupid, or childish, or just completely irrelevant. So then we have to sit on the sidelines, watching these problems become worse and worse, and knowing we have little to any power to do something about it. In conclusion, the expectations society sets on teenagers, and the very little power Gen Z has when it comes to topics like climate change, all become big stress factors for this generation. Trying to get the perfect grades while having no idea if our worlds in a stable place right now is scary, and it's incredibly stressful. I'm only a sophomore, I can't imagine the stress levels Juniors are facing because of the SAT's. So why do we, as a society, think it's okay to judge our teenagers off of a standardized test and a number that ranges from 0-4?
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