Nostalgia is such a strange concept to me. As far as evolution goes, I have trouble trying to think of reasons for humans to need it. Was it some sort of mechanism to downshift the odds of someone leaving a tribe? I digress, examining the evolutionary development of nostalgia is not the reason for this post.

The reason for this post is that I enjoy nostalgia. The melancholy feelings it evokes within me when I think back on certain parts of my life fascinate me. Sometimes I even find myself fondly reflecting on points in my life I would most definitely not want to go back to. Selfishly, I want to experience more nostalgia. So I have tried to think of ways in which I can. I have been trying to think of ways to plant more seeds of nostalgia in my present so that I may reap them at some future date.

First I think it’s important to know what brings about these feelings in the first place. Nostalgia needs long periods of the same experience with obvious bookends. If I attempt to express this in a more scientific manner I might say, “repeatedly exposing yourself to the same stimulus so that you associate it with a period in your life”

Second, I think you need to know the different types of nostalgia. Only some of these are ripe for intentional cultivation, so I’ll limit my navel gazing to just these. The two types of nostalgia I think are easiest to focus on are Olfactory and Auditory. Both of these being related to two distinct senses make them easier to manipulate, and I’ll talk about each in turn.

Olfactory

This is nostalgia related to the sense of smell, which I tend to especially enjoy. Exposed to a burst of some scent, and suddenly you’re transported back to a time period 5,10, 15 years ago. It makes absolutely no sense, but it’s great. A common way I find myself experiencing this is through artificial smells like soaps, detergents, etc. Which has caused me to change the way in which I pick these items to use in my life. Now when I move or enter a new phase in my life, I swap these toiletries for something of a different, inexperienced-as-of-yet scent. I recognize the ridiculousness in this, but if all I need to do to score myself a few extra bouts of nostalgia 10 years from now is change my hand soap from Morning Dew to Lavender then put a flat brim on me and call me Rob Dyrdek.

Auditory

The way in which I approach this one is partially for nostalgia purposes, but also just about trying to experience different things so take this section with a grain of salt. For all intents and purposes there is an infinite amount of music out there. I won’t be able to find every song I would like, yet I still think there is merit in trying to listen to different things. Most of this philosophy is not dictated by nostalgia hunting, however I will say that I don’t want my Spotify Wrapped for the rest of my life to be rotating the same 300 songs. A function of those shifting tastes are pockets of time where certain bands or genres dominate – this lends itself to easily triggerable memories far off in the future.

To expand on this a bit further I’ll mention one type of music I’m not the biggest fan of: Country.

My exposure to Country thus far in my life has been generally limited to specific scenarios – Summer time, hanging out with friends and family. While I’m pretty lukewarm on the music itself, hearing country music tends to elicit those feelings of nostalgia that I can’t get enough of. Pretend that Country now became my most listened to genre where I listened to it year around. The edges on the pretty picture I’ve painted for myself might start to bleed when I think about country music. Rather than one huge fresco, I might instead have an exhibit of tinier paintings. That isn’t inherently bad, I think an argument could easily be made that it’s better – it’s just different than what I’m going for.

Bringing it All Together

Your ability to associate specific stimuli(olfactory, auditory, etc) with specific memories makes them easier to pluck from the past – regardless of whether you intend to or not. Essentially I am just looking to experience new things but do them in some sort of discrete, packaged way so that my brain can easily portion them out into easily digestible bits of nostalgia. I acknowledge the fact that I am fully overthinking this, but whatever I can do what I want it’s my website.