Don't linger. Remember.
Is succumbing to nostalgia unwise?
Hello friends. It’s been a while! Coming to you today with a somewhat introspective look at a piece of advice from King Solomon that stood out to me during a recent read-through of Ecclesiastes.
I’d like this essay to be a bit more polished than it is, but it’s been sitting around in Obsidian for too long already. So I’m releasing it into the internet ether for your consideration.
Despite the recent silence here, I haven’t been inactive on the writing front. I recently wrote an essay for Business Insider (my first official personal essay byline!) about my relationship with one of my closest friends. You can read it here, if you’re interested. 🙂
Since the friendship is intergenerational, it ties in somewhat with topics I touch on here. Why do we remember the past? Why do others’ stories of times we didn’t live through ourselves nevertheless spark a sense of longing?
And, most importantly…is it wise to linger on those “good old days”?
As someone who writes deeply nostalgic personal essays and often considers certain aspects of the past "better" than the present, this verse from Ecclesiastes gives me pause:
Don't long for the "good old days." This is not wise.
— Ecclesiastes 7:10, NLT
Why does Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, warn against what seems to be an inherent human longing for days gone by?
For me, such longing is particularly potent around Christmas and New Year's. My mind returns to days when school was life's biggest responsibility and holidays were spent baking cookies, building snowmen, and sledding down the big hill in the neighbor's yard. Those memories make me want to break out the recipe book, cookie cutters, and sprinkles; put on the old Christmas records; and lie on the living room floor in front of a roaring fire while snow drifts past the windows.
Sometimes I feel nostalgic for an era I've read about but never seen: times when families lived in multi-generational homes, vocation and domesticity overlapped in a comfortable balance, and everyone pitched in to help with the needs and duties of daily life. Times when possessions were fewer, towns and cities were smaller, and life cycled with the seasons.
It sounds like a dream compared to the unrelenting pace of modernity, which urges us to make more and buy more and want more without asking if we need the "more" that we pursue.
It sounds like a life with more space to breathe and more room to think.
I yearn to recapture the simpler, less demanding rhythm of those times.
Which, I think, is Solomon's point: Nostalgia turns the past into a fantasy land that we turn to as an escape from today's problems. But an honest examination of any point in human history reminds us that we've lived in a broken, fallen world since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden. Mankind's decision to turn his back on God in favor of personal autonomy taints every age—a dark undercurrent of sin that we don't want to acknowledge.
Perhaps that's one sense of Solomon's statement in chapter one of Ecclesiastes:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
— Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, KJV
As he explored life "under the sun," Solomon saw powerful signs of how sin twists and breaks the good world God made: inescapable physical death (2:14-16, 3:19-20, 9:2-3); injustice in judgment (3:16, 4:1); and foolish, wicked men enjoying better lives than the just and upright (6:2, 7:15, 8:14).
Nostalgia can easily become a refuge we retreat to in an attempt to escape(synonym) these realities, a bunker where we can try to pretend we once experienced a time when sin and darkness didn't exist. But as much as we want to believe the world was "better" in whatever time we choose to dwell on, the world has never been perfect since Adam and Eve's fall. Every time throughout human history has had good and evil, light and darkness, joy and sorrow.
In attempting to ignore this truth, we rob ourselves of experiencing the joys God has for us in the present.
I'm guilty of such willful ignorance. (And, if you're honest with yourself, so are you.) Even in my essays, which are meant to share beautiful moments of days gone by, it's easy to glamorize the past. I long to linger in the warm glow of the living room on Christmas morning or the soda-fueled midnight hour of a middle school sleepover and let the present, with all its apparent struggles, pass me by.
But to do so would be to despise or ignore the wonderful things God has given me in years since. I can't return to childhood, but I can enjoy the energy and insightful questions of kids at church. I can't make a mess of the kitchen decorating sugar cookies with my mom as a four-year-old again, but I can play a round of our favorite card games with her before bed now, as an adult. And I'm not likely to find myself camped out on a friend's floor watching cartoons and nibbling cold pizza at midnight, but I can relax and enjoy fellowship with my church family at our monthly dinners and occasional game nights.
It's the positive side of Solomon's declaration that nothing changes: In every era, God is a good God Who gives good gifts (Matt. 6:45, 7:11; Jas. 1:17). He keeps on giving throughout our lives (Matt. 7:6-8; Luke 6:38), and He calls His people to remember the goodness, blessings, and protection He has provided in the past (Deut. 4:9-10, 1 Chron. 16:11-15, Ps. 103:2).
Unlike nostalgia, which at best offers moments of fond recollection, these memories give hope for the present and assurance for the future. Looking back on what God has done in my life reminds me of His goodness and enables me to enjoy what He's doing right now. I can celebrate the good that has been without diminishing the good that now is. And I can rest in the truth that God will continue to bring goodness throughout my life as I follow Him in my Christian walk.
I'm not saying that's a perfect interpretation of this verse, or indeed the only interpretation, but it's the change in perspective I've come to from contemplating Solomon's words.
So don't long for the good old days and linger in fantasies of the past. Be wise. Consider God—and celebrate the unchanging good.
What’s your take on nostalgia? Do you linger on memories of days gone by, or are you focused on the present?
Also! I just downloaded Obsidian. This looks wonderful!
Hey I was wondering if you were still here on Substack! I think a little nostalgia is good. Everything in moderation, right? I've found lately that it's been sort of like a comfort zone to get into the nostalgic mindset. I'm finding that it's helping me take life a little less seriously now because I think I was taking things way too seriously before, especially as a kid going through the things I did growing up. I think it helps me as a teacher too because I can draw on those memories of falling in love with music for the first time when I hear or teach certain songs.