What is nostalgia? It seems to be an irrational attachment to what has passed and already been written. Yet, there seems to be something deeper, perhaps even more sinister within the term upon a more scrutinizing investigation. Suppose we do contemplate the past in a place that was a key moment in our formation as a person. There does not seem to be anything particularly wrong with this mere acknowledgment of what was. This seems like a normal rational operation, especially when we are recounting what happened for the sake of reasoning, chronology, or storytelling. However, the moment our intellects abstractions phase from contemplating the question: “What was?”, to “What could have been?”, is when things go wrong.
We are now shifting from what historical actualitized, and perhaps even simply necessitated, to an impossible contingency that disrespects God’s providence, and the free willed acts of other souls also operating at that particular time, in that particular place, and with that particular soul, which possibly includes you. Not only is it disrespectful, but this seems to be a dangerous place for the intellect to go.
If a rational mind already struggles enough to understand and reason with contingencies based upon what is real now, how much more will it struggle, and even lose track of the ground it stands on, when trying comprehend, and track, an abstraction based on a potential passed event that never actually happened, and the contingencies that would, or would not have followed from it?
EAR