Do You Know What's Great?
Do you know what’s great? Nostalgia. For the few who don’t know the word, nostalgia is defined as a warm feeling or desire for times long gone or positive memories of the past. Nostalgia feels like a weight has been lifted, like you’re safe and at home. Reboots, superhero movies, show revivals, live action remakes of animated classics, and many more are an attempt by the media to capitalize on the nostalgia people of previous generations place on the original properties. Someday, probably when we’re in our thirties or forties, we’ll be seeing reboots of things we liked as children.
Do you know what’s great? Being a kid. A lot of seniors are working on their application to college right now. It’s stressful, and a huge responsibility; the decisions we make today could define who we are and what we do in the future. Sometimes it’s nice to look back and remember the ‘good old days,’ when all that mattered was what happened to our favorite cartoon character, or what we’d eat for lunch the next day. We didn’t have any responsibilities. We didn’t know what was wrong with the world. During these times, we couldn’t do anything to help.
Do you know what’s great? Rose-tinted glasses, because when we were young and innocent, we didn’t know that innocent people were being shot by police. We didn’t know the gravity of the wars that had been fought and the wars that we were a part of. We didn’t know the troubles facing the majority of people, who are deprived of their voices by a culture that has always given privilege to the few. We were kids. We didn’t know any better. We would say things to each other, call each other names; things that the Page can’t print because now we know the context, now we know our responsibility.
Do you know what’s great? Dodging responsibility. Because most of our stories about growing up tell us that being an adult is horrible, that it’s a chore, and that it’s soul crushing. The ability to change the world, to make a real lasting affect on our society is terrifying. The reason God sent Adam and Eve to Earth was because they bit the apple of knowledge, that they became self aware and understood their existence and their problems. “Stay golden, ponyboy,” indeed.
Do you know what’s great? Nostalgia. Because we have a candidate running for president whose slogan is “Make America Great Again” when society has never been better than it is now, despite everything still wrong with it. We live in a time where test scores are up, drug use is down, and people still think yesterday was better because it’s when we didn’t know. People don’t want to pop the bubble of fantasy they’ve encircled themselves with, and don’t want to see what’s wrong with the world because it’d force them to face the fact that it’s their fault.
Instead of facing our problems and trying to fix them, we close ourselves off from them and regress backwards, because we’d rather be reminded of things that we thought were good in the past than risk the unknown of something better and new.
The reason we like being reminded of a fictional, rose-tinted past is because it lets us escape the otherwise ever present knowledge that we have control over the direction and actions of our society, and thus all the problematic facets of it. We should try looking forward if we want to exercise that control in a positive way and improve our culture, instead of letting it stagnate to the detriment of millions.
