A recent visit by an old girlfriend brought up a strange wave of nostalgia, so much so that I wanted to write a blog post on it, as well as on grief and remorse. Nostalgia is a feeling of loss, be it a lost home, or a paradise lost. Losses take place in time, such as the lost college days when we were young and happy. But what is lost is not really the college or the days, nor even the home or the paradise. They all still exist, but for other people. What is lost and what we miss are ourselves in those days and at those places. What we miss is the way we were. It may be our youth, our carefree mirth, our innocent dreams and hopes at that time. But these things—youth, mirth, dreams, etc.—don’t stand on their own. They are all reflected back to us in our friends and loved ones. When these mirrors that show us the best versions of ourselves are gone, we mourn their loss. We grieve them. In what way is this grief different from nostalgia, the longing for a reality that no longer can be?
Closely intertwined with nostalgia is the sense of remorse. At every crossroad in our life, we have to choose one path because life allows only a singular timeline. And then we worry: Did I choose poorly or wisely? Do I regret choosing this career path and not the other one? Was it right to have gotten involved with this woman and denied the other one what she wanted? Was it a mistake not to have uttered those words of reassurance that may have comforted a departing soul? Do I regret not sharing more of myself, pieces of my soul, as it were? It’s hard to say yes or no to any of these questions. They were all decisions taken in light of the best information available at that time, tempered by unknown instincts and dim premonitions. In the ultimate analysis, though, we are all human beings standing stupefied before this overwhelming experience called life, equipped only with crude and uncertain tools bestowed upon us by our cultural backgrounds and upbringing, trying to do the best we can, always second-guessing ourselves at every turn: Did I treat her right? Was I unduly stern with him? Was this cruel? Was that stupid? Do I parry this, do I thrust now?
In this broader context of all of us as these children of destiny walking the tightrope of constant inner conflict and indecision, perhaps nothing is right or wrong. Nobody is a sinner or a saint. Life just happens to all of us. Ready or not. For better or for worse. As one of my favorite authors said (I’m paraphrasing), perhaps the greatest wisdom of all is to live life so inconspicuously that fate doesn’t take notice of us. Perhaps the wisest course of action is to stop deciding and second-guessing, to be as kind as we can be to our fellow tormented souls, and to be grateful that we get to experience this baffling, overwhelming, mysterious, and wonderful life, with all its pangs of agony and zeniths of pleasure, with all the sound and fury and nothingness. After all, when the time comes to bow out, free from the endless tyranny of having to decide, wouldn’t you wish you had another go at it? I think I would.