How do we know what is really true ?

<div>Great poem …</div>
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<div>NOSTALGIA by Billy Collins
Remember the 1350? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.</div>
<div>You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,</div>
<div>and I was draped in one of those capes, that were popular,</div>
<div>the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework…..</div>
<div>Everyone would pause for beer and onion soup in the afternoon,</div>
<div>and at night we would play a game called “Find the Sheep.”</div>
<div>Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.</div>
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<div>Where has the summer of 1582 gone? Brocade and sonnet…</div>
<div>marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags..</div>
<div>of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.</div>
<div>Out on the Crazy dance floor we were all doing the Struggle</div>
<div>while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room…</div>
<div>We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.</div>
<div>These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code.</div>
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<div>The 1780s  will never come again. Childhood was big them…</div>
<div>People would take walks to the very tops of hills..</div>
<div>and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.</div>
<div>Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.</div>
<div>We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.</div>
<div>It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.</div>
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<div>I am very fond of the period between 1816 and 1821.</div>
<div>Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits…</div>
<div>And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,</div>
<div>time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,</div>
<div>or shoot me back to 1923 or 1941, or at least let me</div>
<div>recapture the serenity of last month when we picked</div>
<div>berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.</div>
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<div>Even this morning would be an improvement over the present……..</div>
<div>I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees</div>
<div>and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light</div>
<div>flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse</div>
<div>and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.</div>
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<div>As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,</div>
<div>letting my memory rush over them like water</div>
<div>rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.</div>
<div>I was even thinking a little about the future, that place</div>
<div>where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,</div>
<div>a dance whose name we can only guess.

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<div>why no just enjoy the now</div>

I think people have different levels is nostalgia , some live ( and love ) in the past ….

Peter

Yes, you are correct it is a sense of what is really missing now. Actions and decisions made along time ago were done with free will, both heart and  mind. But, with rose tinted nostalgic glasses then it may feel like you missed out on some possibilities that were there for the taking .

The internet does not help , before events and people were distant memories but now it is possible to reconnect or see what they are doing now. This colours the “what if “ imagination.

Also, in your youth life is full of options and possibilities. In your youth you believe you have time to change course and reverse . However, life marches on, and decisions made have consequences that frame your life . As you get older your options shut down , a good life leads to stagnation.

Reinventing your self is key, expose yourself to new possibilities , new risks . The challenge is knowing where to start

Tony