A trip down memory lane: La Belle France

In my life to date, the most memorable and formative snippets of time have been spent in France. For some reason France and its many cities, towns and villages has captured me and inspired from a young age. Well, young being 15 or 16 years old and formative being all the things that teenage boys do for the first time away from the watchful eye of their parents. Such liberation lead to many things: the conquering of girls, beer and Pastis amongst others.

The Bridge and the Mairie, in Brassac, France.

It all started in Brassac, a small village in the midi-Pyrenees, where I'd visit my sister over three summers during my last years in high school. This place will forever hold a place in my heart and mind that will never be replaced. I guess the trapping of nostalgia will always render this time and place a fond memory where my misguided youth and wholly well spent summer days were passed splashing in the river, to splashing through my first beers in the local cafes for the village summer fete. I revisited this place with Google Street View. It was a weird sensation. It gave me all I needed to feel like I was back there except for being there. The sights were the same, exactly the same. Things in my life have changed so massively; yet when I look at the familiar streets that I only knew for a few weeks at a time, over ten years ago, it is like I was there all my life and never left. This kind of technology halts nostalgia somewhat. It stops us day dreaming and allows us tap back in to a place and time that is stuck in our minds. A place that we know still exists, but when we're not there, it's impossible to imagine it existing. But, low and behold, it's still there, as quaint and glorious as ever.

One day I'll go back. This time camera in hand and I will take an abundance of pictures and idealize a romantic vision of rural France to frame on a wall in some room of my house that will undoubtedly be far away from Brassac.

How wonderful it is to have these memories and how wonderful it is to be able to see these places again. Nostalgia has been put in to context...Brassac is still there. It still exists. I can go back, and that makes me happy.

This song seemed fitting with my mood this morning as I took a trip down memory lane.

Nostalgia: the past's greatest stumbling block.

Nostalgia is a crippling thing. It makes us appreciate us our past in a way that hinders our enjoyment of the present. How can we resist this urge to reminisce on times gone by that seem so much better than our current lives? Is it a simple human condition to always want what we can't have and to dream of the greener fields on the other side? I would argue that Nostalgia is a dangerous vice that lures us in to believing that a past time was a happier time. Nostalgia seems to stunt our growth and limit our contentment with our present condition. It has an ability to negatively affect our present as we gaze constantly backwards in to the past. Believing that the past was better than your present and future can have hazardous effects on the steps we take towards growing as individuals.


No matter how advanced, happy, progressive or accomplished we are, the allure of a 'simpler' time, a purer state of being, or a fond remembrance of our childhood always seems to tempt our thoughts. We always hear people say 'when I was young I remember the summers being so hot...' or 'there was always snow in the winter when I was a kid.' Were summers ever hotter than now, or are we just hot-wired to always view the past optimistically, or through the rosy tinted glass of nostalgia? It probably rained as much as it does now, and the sun probably shone as bright as it does now and life was probably as complicated and as seemingly uninspired as nowadays, but for some reason we are pre-conditioned to only remember the happy memories and the good times. This gives strength to the negativity that nostalgia imposes on our current reality. That's the crux of it, nostalgia is not real. It is a collection of biased memories, romantic imaginations of a time gone by that we once knew, or even more fantastical: an era that we never experienced. Nostalgia is like a form of hypnosis: we view our past as nostalgia wants us to.

Nostalgia is a bit like Impressionism. It blurs the edges to give an ethereal, more beautiful interpretation of a scene.

The inclination to be romantic and to imagine a time that we were not a part of, that was perfect in every way, is not only absurd, but renders a great injustice to our existence now. Art, literature, music and human expression has always endeavored to add value or concrete meaning to the 'now', to the seemingly very un-concrete and fluid state of our present existence. Why is it so hard for us to fully grasp, appreciate and live our present realities, our collective 'Now'? The more Nostalgia is ousted, the more it becomes a culprit in divorcing us from our present. It is responsible for tempting us with idealised memories of the past that stops us from embracing and engaging with our present.


Our ability as people to make decisions and effect change in our own lives is real and wonderfully limitless. We should not let Nostalgia trick us in to thinking that the past was a better, easier or a happier place. Our best days are not behind us, or in front of us. The past is gone and cannot change. Right now the present was once the future and right now, it has just become the past. While the past informs, it should not control. The present, our present tense and our reality is infinitely more powerful, once it breaks free from nostalgia. 

Our ambitions and dreams, whatever they may be, should not be restricted by the past through the prism of a romanticised nostalgia. Our realities and futures should not be controlled by the past. Sure we can learn from the past and for sure, certain past experiences inform our character and our approach towards life, but we should not let Nostalgia limit our happiness and our present experiences. The past had as many negative moments as it did happy moments. The summers are just as hot, and the winters just as cold now as they ever were. Our childhoods had as many problems as our adult lives do, except we can't remember them. If only we could be hot-wired to view our present realities as positively as nostalgia allows us to view the past. At some point in your life, you'll probably reminisce on where you're at right now as the best time of your life. You know what? It probably is. 

Release the past and in doing so nostalgia becomes less of a hobby and more of a foe. Nostalgia is only as great and as powerful as you let it interpret the past you are nostalgic over. Where you are right now is in your control. Try not be tempted by the past, no matter how perfect you imagine it to have been. Your present is magnificent and is worth appreciating.

Inspirations: 

'Midnight in Paris', 2011. Directed by Woody Allen. USA: Sony Pictures Classics.

Tali, Sharot. 'The Optimism Bias'. May 28, 2011. Time.  

Tolle, Eckhart. 2004. 'The Power of Now'. 
Barack Obama, Speech in Dublin, Ireland. May 23, 2011.