PROACTIVE NOSTALGIA - Brittlestar’s Weekly Newsletter - Issue #11
Cool title, right? Anyway, hey… it’s Spring and it’s a Sunday morning.
PROACTIVE NOSTALGIA
The yearbook was in a dumpster.
I was contacted by one of our eldest son’s friends who told me he had the 1987 yearbook from my high school. He had found it, along with some other odd treasures, in a dumpster in front of the school which was being gutted and renovated as a middle school.
The 1987 yearbook features me in my top 80’s form… and not just a school photo, but some candids that really freeze the moment in time like French Formula hair spray froze my bangs.
I was too cool in high school to buy a yearbook. Never bought one. “Why would I ever want to remember this?” I thought… probably aloud to seem cooler.
As it turns out, my plan all along was to wait until I was in my fifties and have a friend of my 22 year old son fish a copy out of a dumpster for me….
…
Actually… that does sound pretty cool. Okay, but I have matured and learned that sometimes nostalgia is actually really good for you.
I look at my 17 year old self and think about who I thought I was and who I thought I’d be.
Now, it’s not fair to hold yourself to the dreams and aspirations you had when you were a kid. First off, they quickly become anachronistic.
If someone from 2021 came back to 1987 and told me I’d be making short films for people to watch on their pocket computers all over world AS A JOB my over-hairsprayed head of hair would have likely just spontaneously combusted, or at least caught fire like both hairdryers I kept in my locker did (that’s true).
However, I do think if you strip back the layers and time-tied details of what your goals and aspirations were, you start to see what they were at their core.
When I was 17, I wanted to be a pop star/artist. When I distill that down to its core, I realize I just wanted to be able to create things that have a positive impact on people…. and also not have to introduce myself at social functions (this is also true).
When I look back at me in those yearbook pictures, I think that handsome young idiot wouldn’t necessarily understand what I do but he’d be okay with it.
I’m not saying I’m totally cool with how everything panned out, I’m not a pop star, but I have come to realize that I’m essentially doing what I hoped I would be doing.
You can never impress past you, it’s just the way time works, but sometimes I think it’s good to spend some time being nostalgic and looking back at who you were and who you are now.
A little proactive nostalgia.
If you don’t feel comfortable with that comparison, maybe it’s time to boil down who it is you thought you’d be and find a way to get there.
It’s never too late until you’re dead.
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I picked a locker beside an outlet. I was a goddamn genius.
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