Nostalgia and Depression

Nostalgia is an interesting thing. Wikipedia describes it as “a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations" or as Merriam-Webster puts it, nostalgia is “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.”

Earlier this evening, I decided to check out that new documentary on the Brat Pack, Brats. Within the first 15 minutes, the needle drops included Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Appart,” The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” and Steve Winwood’s “Back In The High Life Again.”

I found the whole thing incredibly sad. Not because I wanted to go back to 1985, fuck that. It’s just…how do I put this? Let’s start with this. I am an overly sensitive person, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. But it means that whatever I feel, I feel it deeply and at times it’s overwhelming. And sometimes it’s the littlest thing that can set me off.

The older I get, the more I realize that I am pretty screwed up. How do you fix something that’s been broken for your entire life? I wish I knew.

I do know this, wishing to go back to the past is counterproductive and unhealthy. Remembering, reflecting on, and learning from the past are all valid and important endeavors. But the past is the past.

Not that the future looks all that great at the moment but…

I don’t know where I’m going with any of this. I got an idea for something to write about but as soon as I opened this thing up, my mind went blank.

Why is all of this shit so hard? Not to repeat myself, but I wish I knew.

Here is a playlist I created a while back that focuses on the music I was listening to in the first few years when I was discovering punk, post punk, college rock, et al. My own little bit of nostalgia, you could say.