Nostalgia Ultra

Introductory Musings

As I struggle to set up this website, I have taken extended time to dig around other neocities blogs trying to get a grasp of the platforms capabilities. So far I have been impressed by both the tools and the mechanics using them. Given the platforms nature most websites focus nostalgia, seeking to enshrine some material and aesthetic aspect of the past. This naturally leads to musings on why we see a value in these things. The answers tend toward comfort, an association of this medium with a past time and place of significance. Less explicitly a Luddite strain runs through, skeptical of more modern, centralized platforms that trade in self expression for ease of use. It speaks to the underlying estrangement from the present many feel and an attempt to resist it in a minor way.

This estrangement from the present and nostalgia towards the past has lead to accusations of romanticization. Studying history in college I occasionally met people with a similar tendency towards historical periods and cultures. However, the word to describe my average peers relationship to the past wasn't romantic but affectionate. Most saw all the injustices and flaws in these periods yet felt compelled to study them out of some belief that this specific moment in the past and the people who lived through it mattered vis a vis the present. The past decades doesn’t appear brighter but rather (to paraphrase Dylan Jones book Sweet Dreams) “the farther away they become, the more interesting, the more complex they appear”. With distance we are both more and less passionate; passionate towards the importance of this time or thing, yet dispassionate towards its ontology.

Perhaps this fixation is just a particular susceptibility towards advertising. The synthetic desire produced by last years Capital worked so well it made us uncomfortable with the new model. The Buddha believed that that the worlds impermanence inevitably leads to unfulfilled desire, therefore we should seek to eliminate that desire rather than try and satisfy it. I am sure he knew better than me, and yet I cant bring myself to give up my fixation towards the past. I guess I am headed towards another round of Samsara when I die.

So in hopes that this sober affection I am left with can have some use, this blog will primarily be cultural writing on past media and culture with the occasional dip into my other interests. The main goal of the site is an outlet to improve my writing skills which I have always felt to be inadequate even at their peak. I urge you to bear with my as I attempt to improve.

~Mercy Shown