{"id":20511,"date":"2023-12-05T12:29:55","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T19:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=20511"},"modified":"2023-12-05T12:29:55","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T19:29:55","slug":"the-surprising-powers-of-nostalgia","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/the-surprising-powers-of-nostalgia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Powers of Nostalgia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon: <\/b>Hello, friends. My name\u07f4s Tami Simon, and I\u07f4m the founder of Sounds True, and I want to welcome you to the Sounds True Podcast, <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True\u07f4s new membership community and digital platform. It\u07f4s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original premium transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows, including a video version of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> with an after-show community question and answer session with featured guests. I hope you\u07f4ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us, and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at soundstruefoundation.org. And in advance, thank you for your support.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this episode of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, my guest is Clay Routledge, PhD. Clay is a leading expert in existential psychology. He\u07f4s the Director and Vice President of Research at the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute, and he\u07f4s co-editor of Profectus, an online magazine on human progress and flourishing. Clay is a highly cited researcher who\u07f4s published more than a hundred scholarly papers, and his work has been cited by many media outlets, including the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i>, the <\/span>Washington Post<\/span><\/i>, the <\/span>Atlantic<\/span><\/i>, and more. With Sounds True, I\u07f4m proud to say that Clay is the author of a new book. It\u07f4s called<\/span> Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life<\/span><\/i>. Clay, welcome to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clay Routledge:<\/b> Thank you for having me. It\u07f4s great to be on.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Of course. I want to talk about nostalgia, the power of nostalgia in our lives, and your new book, <\/span>Past Forward<\/span><\/i>. But before we get there, there\u07f4s a topic really important to me that I want to start our conversation by addressing, which has to do with what you\u07f4ve discovered at the Human Flourishing Lab about what supports our sense of agency. I know that agency is an important aspect of existential psychology. How do we help people feel like they have choice and that they can put their energy into something that will move themselves, their community, and our culture forward?<\/span><\/p>\n

And I wanted to start here, because I think right here at this moment in time, during this conversation, a lot of people feel a sense of helplessness. They feel like, \u201cNothing I do really matters. Come on, look, Tami, warfare, climate destruction. Really? My agency matters?\u201d So I\u07f4d love to know how you view that as an existential psychologist and what you\u07f4ve found at the Human Flourishing Lab that supports our sense of agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Thank you for that question. Agency is at the center of a lot of the work I do. As you noted, it\u07f4s an important component of existential psychology. One of the books that has most influenced my own research is Viktor Frankl\u07f4s <\/span>Man\u07f4s Search for Meaning<\/span><\/i>, and an important observation that Frankl makes in his book, which is he\u07f4s talking about a time in a concentration camp, Nazi concentration camp during World War II, is it can seem like in extreme circumstances like that, clearly you don\u07f4t have agency, right? These are people that are being held against their will by violence and who are being executed. And what he noted was even in such circumstances when everything feels hopeless and you actually don\u07f4t have a lot of freedom, you still control your own thoughts, what\u07f4s inside of your head. People can\u07f4t get to that. And so at the core of agency is an appreciation for the capacity of the human mind and the human spirit, even when life seems horrible and even when so much feels like it\u07f4s out of our control.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think starting there with that recognition of the incredible power of advanced human capacities, our brains. So neuroscientists might lay out all the ways in which our brains are highly sophisticated and involve all of these structures and processes that make us an especially intelligent organism, but more conversationally, we can all recognize that we\u07f4re a reflective species. We can think, and we can direct our thoughts inward, we can figure out what we want to do with our lives, we can focus on our goals. And that\u07f4s all very, very important for acknowledging our agency. It\u07f4s often what I call the meaning mindset. So a critical feature of living a meaningful life is starting with that awareness that Frankl pointed out, that we have to believe in our ability to live meaningful lives. We have to believe in our psychological freedom, that people cannot control our thoughts, our values, what we care about, what we want to focus our attention on.<\/span><\/p>\n

So all that\u07f4s really, really important. But connecting it to our work at the Human Flourishing Lab, one of the things that I\u07f4ve discovered, and not just me, but a lot of researchers in this space have started kind of finding clues to support, is that it might seem counterintuitive, but even though it\u07f4s important to start with our own thoughts, agency is very much about that mindset, we find agency out in the world through action. And so you have to get outside of your head. It\u07f4s good to start in your head to figure out what your priorities and goals are, but really what we\u07f4re discovering is you feel the greatest sense of agency and the greatest sense of meaning in life when you\u07f4re actually out there making a difference in other people\u07f4s lives. So meaning is really about social significance, it\u07f4s really about saying, \u201cHow do you know you matter?\u201d \u201cWell, I matter because I\u07f4m actually trying to improve the world. I\u07f4m trying to improve other people\u07f4s lives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And you made a good point about how it\u07f4s easy to look at some of the big global challenges we face and feel like, \u201cWell, I\u07f4m just one little person here. What can I do?\u201d And especially in our hyperconnected world, where we\u07f4re online a lot, and we just see these things happening all over the world that seem horrible, it\u07f4s easy to feel like, \u201cWell, I can have no impact on that.\u201d It\u07f4s good in those times to refocus on, \u201cWell, what can you do?\u201d Well, you can certainly make a difference in your own household, you can make a difference in your own community. And if you start there, then oftentimes you can scale up, you can think about how actions that start at home, that start in your neighborhood can spread beyond that.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even if they didn\u07f4t, that\u07f4s an important endeavor, is just working to improve your own life and the lives of people around you. And I think that\u07f4s really where agency is, it\u07f4s in action. One of the projects we\u07f4re working on at the Human Flourishing Lab is what we call agency in action, and it\u07f4s a recognition of yeah, it\u07f4s important to think about goals and priorities and values and all that, but putting those things into action is where you\u07f4re going to see your life really matter. And that\u07f4s kind of what\u07f4s going to spark human flourishing.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> The image that\u07f4s occurring to me, unfortunately, is a landslide that\u07f4s coming down. And here I am as this little human agentic form, working on my own thoughts and attitudes, helping my community, but I\u07f4m still being caught in this landslide of death and destruction, and I just don\u07f4t feel very hopeful. What would you say, that since my actions are, they\u07f4re not even, they\u07f4re a drop in a bucket that has a hole in it? Something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yeah. Well, I mean, another thing that I think is interesting about agency is when you recognize your own agency and you start taking actions to exercise the agency, you\u07f4re more likely to see the agency in others, which increases social trust, it increases cooperation. And so it\u07f4s not just that I\u07f4m doing this and everything else is falling apart around me, if you ever want to have any hope of other people doing things and collaborating, cooperating, working together to improve the world, to advance progress in some way, it starts by recognizing they have agency too. And we have to see our own agency to recognize other people\u07f4s agency, I think. And then the idea is to build a culture of agency, to be like, \u201cWell, I can\u07f4t do this by myself. We all need to work together to do this.\u201d But I really think it starts at that low level. We have to build that sense of trust and hope kind of at a local level for it to spread outward.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> OK, building a culture of agency. I love that phrase. I couldn\u07f4t help but pick up on it. That\u07f4s what I want to help do, and I think that that\u07f4s what many listeners to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> want to help do. What do you recommend, if that\u07f4s our focus, that\u07f4s our value, that\u07f4s what we want to do?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Well, I think one of the benefits of the action approach to agency, like I said, you\u07f4re going to feel the most agentic and the most meaningful when you\u07f4re actually doing things, not just sitting around thinking, but doing things. You got to get out of your head and out into the world. Well, then other people see that you\u07f4re doing things, and they\u07f4re like, \u201cHey, if Clay can do things, I can do things.\u201d And then I see you doing things, and I\u07f4m like, \u201cOh, you can do things too.\u201d So I think just starting, taking action.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so if you want a concrete example, maybe people are worried about\u2026 I\u07f4ll give you an actual example, not a hypothetical. So I was watching the news one time, which I don\u07f4t like to watch news, because it\u07f4s like you\u07f4re talking about, it\u07f4s kind of depressing, it\u07f4s one negative story after another. But sometimes in the news, they do these little positive stories, and they were showing this school, I can\u07f4t remember what state it was, but they were showing this school in the United States that was having a real problem with violence in the school, teenage boys in particular. And some of it was gang-related, perhaps, but there was this real culture of kids getting into trouble, boys getting into fights, people getting kicked out of school, people not feeling safe, and it created this real culture of, it wasn\u07f4t good for education.<\/span><\/p>\n

And people were frustrated, because they\u07f4re like, \u201cWell, the school\u07f4s not doing enough, maybe the police aren\u07f4t doing enough.\u201d But then people are like, \u201cWell, we don\u07f4t really want the police in schools, police don\u07f4t belong in schools.\u201d And so how do you solve this? And then this group of dads, starting with this one dad, said, \u201cWell, we\u07f4ll go in and help.\u201d And I\u07f4m not suggesting this is the ideal solution, but they took it upon themselves to be like, \u201cWell, maybe if there were more men around in the school, watching, mentoring, if seeing a fight\u07f4s about to break off and intervening and modeling better behavior, then that would be a good way to reduce conflict and sort of change the culture in the school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And one dad started doing that, and then other dads started volunteering. And so this whole group of dads started essentially working as volunteers in a school to change the culture of violence in that school. So that\u07f4s a good example at a local level of people being frustrated, not knowing what the clear answer was, there clearly being trade-offs to different models. Understandably, there was some apprehension about, \u201cWell, we should bring in police,\u201d for instance. And so they\u07f4re like, \u201cWell, what can we do? Well, we can do something ourselves as the dads. We can go in and try to supervise and try to offer not just surveillance, but intervention, seeing where conflicts are emerging and how they can deescalate them, and then maybe how they can mentor these boys to have a different response.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And so I think that\u07f4s just a very small local example, but I think that you see stuff like that, and then oftentimes you\u07f4ll see that spread. You\u07f4ll see something that starts off as a local phenomenon turn into a national movement where there\u07f4s chapters all over the country of people trying to do something. And so this was kind of the history of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, right? It\u07f4s like one mom started with a very tragic story and then ended up building this national movement to dramatically change not just our views, but the laws around drinking and driving.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so I think all that requires doing something, trying. And sometimes attempts fail. Any successful entrepreneur will tell you that failure is very much part of it. But what\u07f4s important is getting out there and taking a shot and trying to spread that culture of \u2018that\u07f4s what we have to do.\u2019 It\u07f4s easy to sit around and complain about things, but if we want to make things better, we\u07f4ve got to get out there and have some skin in the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> All right. Clay, thank you for bringing your skin into the game through this conversation and the many conversations and the research and work you\u07f4re doing at the Human Flourishing Lab. It was curious to me that in the center of all of the research that you\u07f4ve been doing the last 20-plus years, you decided to focus your writing on the topic of nostalgia, the power of nostalgia. And I was a little bit, at first, \u201cWhy? Why are we going back in order to move forward? I don\u07f4t get this.\u201d Tell me how your own interest in nostalgia developed.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> It\u07f4s a pretty interesting story. When I was in college, I started to become interested in the human appreciation and understanding of time. I\u07f4ve always been into time travel movies and science fiction and things like that, but I was struck by this idea that the subjective experience of time, which is we can measure time quite precisely actually, but sometimes a moment will feel like it\u07f4s longer than another. And so our experience of time has these other components that are perhaps non-objective. And so that\u07f4s really where I started thinking about, \u201cWell, how do people experience time?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And that was when I was an undergrad, and I started messing around with doing some experiments on that, that I didn\u07f4t know what I was doing, so they weren\u07f4t great. But then when I went to graduate school, I went into this direction that\u07f4s called existential psychology, which is really how do humans grapple with the big questions about the nature of existence and their place in the universe, and importantly, how does that affect our psychological functioning? What does it mean to be an organism that can ask these questions, and is that good for us, is that bad for us, and so forth?<\/span><\/p>\n

And once again, the issue of time came up and, more specifically, a term called temporal consciousness. And so this is our ability to think about the future and the past. So one of the things that we think is unique to humans is we don\u07f4t just live in the present, we don\u07f4t just live in the moment, we sit around and we think about five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now, we think about tomorrow. And when I first started doing this research, I was very, very focused on that kind of future-oriented thinking. What does it mean to be an organism capable of thinking about the future? On the one hand, it\u07f4s cool, right? Because I can plan for the future. I can be like, \u201cWell, if I save money, I can do this. Or if I work hard, I can progress in my career goals. If I get up every day and I exercise, maybe eventually I\u07f4ll be able to run a marathon.\u201d So our ability to think about the future is very important for our ability to pursue goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

But also, I thought an interesting component of this, it\u07f4s also bad for us, because when we think about the future, oftentimes we get anxious, we get afraid, we think about horrible things that could happen to us. We think about what will ultimately happen to us, the ultimate existential challenge, which is our eventual mortality. And so I started thinking about that stuff, and there was a bunch of research on how our ability to think about the future can cause existential anxiety, and I was very interested in that.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then I started thinking, well, it\u07f4s not just that we think about the future and that makes us anxious, but we also think about the past, and these two things might actually be connected. If thinking about the future can make us anxious, maybe we turn to the past for comfort, to relieve that anxiety. And that\u07f4s really where I got started thinking about nostalgia. Is nostalgia, at least in part, a response to our ability to think about the future and the fears associated with that future? So the future\u07f4s often uncertain, we don\u07f4t know what\u07f4s going to happen to us. There\u07f4s all sorts of possibilities, good and bad, and maybe that uncertainty makes us seek some kind of comfort, some kind of stability in our lives, and that\u07f4s where our cherished memories come into play. And so that\u07f4s really how I started this was thinking about the future, and then that led me to, \u201cWell, people think about the past.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And then ultimately, that led me to thinking, \u201cWell, actually is our thinking about the past really about the future?\u201d It seems like a lot of people think of nostalgia often as some type of hiding in the past or some type of escapism, right? We are not satisfied in the present, so we look backwards to a time where maybe we feel like things were better, and that holds us back, that that\u07f4s kind of a barrier to fully living in the present. And what we started to discover was no, it might actually be the thing we need to help us figure out a way forward in our lives. And so now, I\u07f4ve come to believe that this kind of past-oriented, future-oriented thinking are very, very related, that it\u07f4s not we\u07f4re either looking to the past or we\u07f4re looking to the future, it\u07f4s often we\u07f4re doing both as a way to navigate the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Well, I have to ask you this question, because a lot of the teachers and books that we publish at Sounds True focus on something like nowness. They\u07f4re not interested particularly in projecting into the future and all the anxiety that comes with that or trying to make sense of the past or increase your sense of present time orientation to feel the most content. What do you think about that in terms of your own look at time? What about timelessness?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Right. No, I think that\u07f4s definitely important as well, and I think that on the surface it might seem like they\u07f4re in conflict, but I think they go together quite well. Here\u07f4s one piece of research that\u07f4s interesting. So people looked at what\u07f4s the similarity and difference that\u07f4s between happiness and meaning in life? And what they found was that when happiness is really kind of a present-oriented state, \u201cHow are things going right now? Are you happy? Are you not happy?\u201d Right? Whereas living a meaningful life, often it involves something deeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, meaning and happiness are positively correlated. It\u07f4s easier to feel like your life\u07f4s meaningful when you\u07f4re in a good mood than when you\u07f4re in a bad mood. But we also know a lot of the most fulfilling things, the things that really give our life some deep meaning are difficult. They involve unpleasant emotions, they involve stress, they involve pursuing difficult goals, they involve making difficult choices, they involve some of the bittersweet elements of life. Sometimes, even tragic things serve as reminders of how precious our time is and how much we need to really live in the moment, as you noted. And so oftentimes, we\u07f4re pursuing multiple motives. Wellbeing is complex. I believe in a holistic approach to wellbeing. It\u07f4s not just happiness, it\u07f4s not just social connectedness, it\u07f4s not just spirituality, it\u07f4s not just one thing or another. It involves a whole bunch of things, because humans are complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so likewise, I think we need to live in the moment, we need to savor the moment. In fact, there\u07f4s research showing the more we do that, actually the more the things we\u07f4re doing in the moment lead to nostalgia in the future. Like savoring experiences helps create the types of memories that you end up being nostalgic for later. But we don\u07f4t just live in the moment. Like I said, humans are highly advanced. We can try to grab that moment. Well, we also have to, just as a function of the nature of our species, we have to plan for the future too, and we have to plan for the next moment, we have to plan for the next opportunity to savor. And so as we\u07f4re sort of navigating that space between nowness and also being this more advanced temporal consciousness, I think nostalgia really comes into play in helping us figure out the path towards how we want to spend the next moment, how we want to spend the next year, how we want to spend the next five years. And within that, then we want to have these moments that we can really savor.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> In immersing myself in your work on <\/span>Past Forward<\/span><\/i>, I kept going into the memory bank, asking myself, \u201cIs this a nostalgic memory? Is this not a nostalgic memory? How would I know?\u201d What are the characteristics of memory that you\u07f4d say, \u201cOh, that\u07f4s nostalgic, Tami. That\u07f4s what Clay\u07f4s pointing to?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yeah. So one of the things that we did to get at that question, which was we went all over the world, actually. We\u07f4ve done studies in dozens of nations now. We wanted to get a sense of what do people think is nostalgic? We can kind of define it in our own way at a theoretical level, but is there a consensus among ordinary people all over the world about what counts as nostalgia? And so we\u07f4ve done this in a number of ways to try to pinpoint this issue of what\u07f4s a nostalgic memory versus a non-nostalgic memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing we did is we just asked people to write down a nostalgic memory in a narrative form, and then we\u07f4ve used these kind of narrative analysis to sort of get a snapshot of what nostalgic memories tend to be versus having them write about other types, like autobiographical memories. So tell us about an ordinary life experience from the past versus tell us about an experience that makes you nostalgic.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what we find is nostalgic experiences tend to be things that follow what\u07f4s called a redemptive sequence or have this kind of bittersweet element. So you\u07f4ve probably heard of nostalgia is sometimes a little bit sad, sometimes happy, and so it\u07f4s this emotional cocktail. And often, this is the case, because when people share a nostalgic experience from their life, it isn\u07f4t just a, \u201cOh, he did something fun one day.\u201d There is a sense of accomplishment, or there\u07f4s something epic to it. \u201cWe went on this vacation. This happened, and we got rained out and we got stuck in the hotel or something like that, but then we ended up playing board games, and we ended up having this great time.\u201d So oftentimes, there\u07f4s that kind of element to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another feature of nostalgic narratives compared to ordinary events is they often, not always, but they often feature culturally meaningful experiences. So these are rites of passage or ceremonies, graduations, marriages or weddings, a birth of a child, special holidays, things like that. Things that are rarer than mundane events is another thing that characterizes them compared to ordinary experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

But centrally, people will recognize that a nostalgic meaning or a nostalgic memory is a personally meaningful memory, and what that means is there\u07f4s going to be a lot of variety because these are idiosyncratic. What\u07f4s a special memory to you? You might have a special memory of going to an ice cream parlor with a parent or something like that, that someone else would be like, \u201cThat was just kind of an ordinary thing,\u201d but to you it was special. So that specialness of it really matters. And so that\u07f4s one way we\u07f4ve looked at this. We\u07f4ve had people write about it, and then we\u07f4ve kind of said, \u201cIs there a general consensus all over of what people seem to think of nostalgia?\u201d And obviously, it\u07f4s not black and white. There is some ambiguity there.<\/span><\/p>\n

But another way we\u07f4ve done it, which I think is really, really cool as well, is we\u07f4ve had people write down these nostalgic memories or write down other types of memories, and then we\u07f4ve taken those memories and we\u07f4ve made sure the word nostalgia is not in there and we\u07f4ve removed it if they do write the word nostalgia, and then we\u07f4ve given those stories to other people. And then we\u07f4ve asked them to read these, and we\u07f4ve asked them to tell us, \u201cIs this a nostalgic or non-nostalgic memory?\u201d And people are really, really good at getting it right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another way of saying this is people know nostalgia when they see it. It\u07f4s hard to define, it\u07f4s hard to articulate, but if they read somebody else\u07f4s memory, they\u07f4re very, very accurate at telling you whether or not that was nostalgic to that person, which I think is another good evidence that there is, even though people might have a difficult time consciously explaining that, everyone kind of understands nostalgia when they see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> In searching my own memory bank for nostalgic memories to bring up to really understand how this is going to empower agency and meaning in my life, which is the point of your book, <\/span>Past Forward<\/span><\/i>, I often hit painful experiences like, \u201cOh, this was a nostalgic memory connected to a relationship that actually went south, went sour,\u201d like, \u201cOh, God.\u201d So now I\u07f4m going to discount that memory because it brings up the conflict or disappointment that also occurred. What do you do about that when you\u07f4re working with nostalgia?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yeah. One of the ways I really, really saw that, what you\u07f4re talking about, exemplified was when we first started doing this work. I was a professor. Well, I was doing this when I was in grad school, but when I first started doing this professionally as a PhD graduate professor, I was at the University of Southampton in the UK. And one of the first studies we did there when I was working on this is we went around neighborhoods in our city, and we collected nostalgic narratives from older British adults. These were people that were old enough, many of them, to have been children during World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, Southampton where we lived, nearly 90% of that city was destroyed by German bombing during World War II. So you had a lot of people whose experiences as children were their dads being sent off to the continent to wage war against Germany, being separated even from their mothers, being sent to live out in the country with grandparents, seeing a lot of tragedy, a lot of disruption, a lot of separation in their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, interestingly, a lot of people chose to share memories from that time. When we asked them to share a nostalgic memory, they could have shared anything. We didn\u07f4t say write about when you were a child during the German bombing of Southern England, but a lot of people chose to write about that. And what was interesting about that is that they acknowledged in these memories, I mean, they weren\u07f4t sugarcoating it, they weren\u07f4t pretending it was something great, they were saying this was a time of great upheaval, of great fear, of great tragedy. And yet in that experience, it was a reminder of what was important in life. Our family was really close. There were special moments in that time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, fortunately, most people\u07f4s nostalgic memories don\u07f4t involve trauma or tragedy, but the point being that even in very, very difficult memories, if for some reason we feel a sense of nostalgia, if our mind goes back to those memories when we\u07f4re looking to feel nostalgic, it often means, at least in my opinion, is there\u07f4s some important lessons tucked in there. It might not be an entirely positive memory, but there\u07f4s something in that time and that experience that we think is worthwhile, is worth remembering, worth holding onto. It might even help inspire us. So even experiences of loss, it\u07f4s not uncommon to see people have nostalgic memories that involve the loss of a loved one.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, if you think about things, like attending a funeral, oftentimes we sit around and we talk about memories with the deceased person, those special memories. So it\u07f4s not uncommon for people to have sadness, loss, difficult life transitions, major disruptions in their life as part of their nostalgic memories. But what that says, and I think that\u07f4s another way nostalgic memories can really be distinguished from other types of memories, is they\u07f4re not just purely happy memories, oftentimes. They\u07f4re meaningful memories, they\u07f4re important memories, they\u07f4re something that we think are impactful, that are worth holding onto.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> And Clay, tell me, how does it work? What\u07f4s the mechanism by which nostalgia is going to empower me moving forward in my life? And you describe in <\/span>Past Forward<\/span><\/i>, it can help resolve loneliness even, it can help us feel more capable in the face of challenges. You give so many benefits. How does it work to do that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yeah. So yes, nostalgia has quite a few seemingly distinct functions. So we\u07f4ve done studies that are showing that after people spend a few minutes writing about nostalgic memory, they feel a greater sense of self-esteem. We\u07f4ve done studies showing after people write about nostalgic memory or listen to nostalgic music, they feel a greater sense of meaning in life, they feel a greater sense of social connection. They feel more optimistic about the future. They actually are more creative in creative problem-solving tasks. So there\u07f4s all these different things that seems like, well, nostalgia is having all sorts of distinct effects.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there is a common mechanism behind all these things, or many of them, I think. And that is, in our research, one of the things we find is nostalgic memories, and this is another feature of nostalgic memories that distinguish them, nostalgic memories tend to be highly social memories, They tend to involve close ones, like loved ones. Not all nostalgic memories are that way. People certainly have shared memories, where they\u07f4ve made some major accomplishment on their own, they\u07f4ve done some athletic accomplishment or something all by themselves. But most of the time, even in those memories, they pretty quickly talk about the people who helped them do that, help them accomplish that.<\/span><\/p>\n

So nostalgic memories tend to be deeply social. And humans are, of course, social, and it turns out that the thing that gives us meaning in life are social relationships, is the feeling that we\u07f4re making a significant impact in the lives of others. And it seems like that sense of social significance is at the core of the nostalgic experience, and the power of nostalgia lies within that.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so you might think of something like, let\u07f4s think about something like creativity that seems pretty far removed from social connectedness. In fact, we often think of creativity as an act, as extreme act of self-expression, of I\u07f4m doing something very, very different, unique, something very novel that\u07f4s not connected to other people, but it is showing how different I am, how unique I am. Well, if you think about the psychology of creativity, it\u07f4s hard to be creative when you\u07f4re highly anxious or distressed in some way, because essentially creativity is saying, \u201cI\u07f4m taking a risk, I\u07f4m putting myself out there, I\u07f4m trying something different.\u201d And people don\u07f4t do that very well when they feel anxious, because when you\u07f4re anxious, that\u07f4s not a time to try something new. It\u07f4s time to be safe, it\u07f4s a time to be defensive, to be protective, to focus on protecting the world you know, not going out there and trying to explore something new. And so creativity is actually facilitated by a sense of security.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can think about this in a workplace environment. So if you have a team of employees and you want them to be creative, it\u07f4s not good to make them live in fear that they might lose their jobs if they come up with the wrong idea. It\u07f4s better to make them feel like they live in a socially supportive environment, in which it\u07f4s OK to take risks, you\u07f4re not going to get in trouble if what you do doesn\u07f4t work, or you\u07f4re not going to get laughed at or anything like that. We\u07f4re here to try different things. So when you create that supportive environment, you actually allow people to try more things and to be more creative and be willing. Instead of their energy going on, like reducing their anxiety, they can really throw themselves into the more explorative act of creativity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, nostalgia helps provide that security because of that social function. So when people are nostalgic, they\u07f4re reminded of times with loved ones, they\u07f4re reminded that there are people that care about them, they\u07f4re reminded that they\u07f4ve had experiences of social success, they\u07f4re reminded of things that they\u07f4ve done to make a positive difference in other people\u07f4s lives or things that have brought them closer together with other people. And that experience offers a sense of social security, which makes them more confident, which makes them feel a bit more equipped to be creative and to try to put themselves out there. And so even something like creativity, and certainly things like social connectedness, self-esteem, meaning in life, are facilitated by a feeling of deep social connection, which nostalgia helps cultivate that.<\/span><\/p>\n

And one other quick thing I\u07f4ll say about that, it isn\u07f4t just that nostalgia makes us feel socially connected by reminding us of past relationships, sometimes, those relationships are gone, where you don\u07f4t associate with that person anymore, we lose loved ones. But what nostalgia does is, by reminding you of those past experiences of deep social connection, you\u07f4re emboldened. Even if you feel like, \u201cWell, right now, I\u07f4m not\u2026 I moved to a new city, or I don\u07f4t know very many people, or I feel lonely,\u201d this is just a moment in time, and life is bigger than this moment, and I\u07f4ve had other moments that were quite socially fulfilling. And so that gives me the social confidence that, \u201cOh, I can have that again. I can restore relationships, I can reconnect with people, I can cultivate new relationships as necessary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So nostalgia doesn\u07f4t just make people feel socially connected or remind them of past social connections, it energizes them to socially connect in the present and energizes them to prioritize social goals over other types of goals, which helps give them that sense of confidence and comfort needed to be bold and creative and to be energized to go out and do things. So I think that deep sense of social connectedness that nostalgia helps facilitate and energize is at the core of all the other benefits of nostalgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> One of your suggestions to people is to try creating a nostalgia journal, and I\u07f4m curious if you can say more and maybe offer some suggested writing prompts, like, \u201cOK, I\u07f4ve got my journal. I\u07f4ve got one memory. Where do I get the rest of them? What writing prompts will help me?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> One of the things that I try to do in the book is, a lot of times, it helps to be very specific with the issue you\u07f4re facing right now and to use that as a way to do these types of writing prompts that you\u07f4re talking about. And so if you think about a challenge you have right now or a decision you\u07f4re trying to make, maybe it\u07f4s like, \u201cDo I take this job? Should I stay at my current job? I have this other opportunity,\u201d it can help to start writing about nostalgic memories and to specifically try to think about memories that you feel like relate to the core themes of the challenge you\u07f4re facing. So if you\u07f4re facing a social challenge, it\u07f4s good to think about, \u201cWell, what did I do in the past? Do I have memories that touch on themes where I\u07f4ve had social hardships or social challenges where something I was going to do is potentially going to make me lose contact with someone or is going to be an opportunity to improve a relationship with someone?\u201d And so to think about specific things to those challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n

But also, I think that even memories that don\u07f4t seem like on the surface that they\u07f4re related can be quite useful. And so it\u07f4s good to try to just come up with a bunch of different types of nostalgic memories. So for example, maybe you have a professional, just to stick on the professional side of things, maybe you have a professional opportunity, but you\u07f4re worried that you\u07f4re like, \u201cWell, this is going to involve learning this whole new set of skills.\u201d This can especially be the case if you\u07f4re middle-aged or older, and you feel like, \u201cWell, there\u07f4s all these new technologies coming out. Do I want to have to do that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You could think about a nostalgic memory where you\u07f4ve had to overcome something, or it\u07f4s really taken some type of persistence, and it can be in a totally different domain. So it might be an athletic memory. It might be like, \u201cOh, when I was in high school, I decided to try this sport and had to do this and do that, and I felt really anxious and uncomfortable.\u201d And you\u07f4re not saying I\u07f4m going to do that sport right now. What you\u07f4re saying is there\u07f4s something to that experience of adversity, of novelty, of having to put myself out there and try something different, of it being very difficult, and in those memories, even if it\u07f4s a completely different type of experience, and those memories are clues to my core sense of self, of my ability to do things, my willingness to take risks.<\/span><\/p>\n

And we actually found in some of our research that nostalgia, once you hit around age 40 or so, nostalgia actually makes you feel younger than you are. One of the things we associate with youth is that sort of willingness to take risks, that youthful spirit, that energetic spirit, and we find that nostalgia can help you recapture that, which can be good for all sorts of things in life.<\/span><\/p>\n

So to get back to your question, I think something to do is to try to start with, \u201cWhat do I want to work on in the present?\u201d And then just start trying to generate memories. And then one of the things that I\u07f4ve found, because I sympathize with people who are like, \u201cWell, that\u07f4s going to be hard. I\u07f4m not the type of person that sits around and journals.\u201d I definitely sympathize with that. But one of the things that I\u07f4ve found just doing research is people often who start off with, \u201cI don\u07f4t have anything to say. I don\u07f4t know what to say,\u201d it just takes a couple of minutes, and then the ideas start flowing, and then you get in that practice. And then oftentimes, it\u07f4s hard to get people to stop, because they dig a little deeper and they dig a little deeper. So I think that\u07f4s a good way of doing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I should also note, I don\u07f4t think journaling\u07f4s the only way. I mean, even doing something, creating a nostalgia playlist for music on Spotify or something might seem kind of superficial, like, \u201cOh, you\u07f4re just listening to music,\u201d but in a lot of our research, we found that music is actually very powerful nostalgia cue. So some people who are maybe like, \u201cOh, I don\u07f4t really want to write things,\u201d there are these other types of activities that can just get you thinking about these memories. Scrapbooking is another one, creative activities that allow you to manipulate memories in a way, either through pictures or videos, that really allow you to interact with the memory. Some people like that more than they like writing, but the cool thing about nostalgia is there\u07f4s just a lot of different ways to engage in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember talking to one person, for instance, who said the way they really like to experience nostalgia, sort of revisit these memories is through cooking. And as they just said, they grew up in a household where there was a lot of cooking, and there were a lot of family events and activities around cooking, conversations, and they thought that that was kind of the best way for them to make contact with those memories. And it\u07f4s true, certainly, that our olfactory senses are a powerful cue for nostalgia. We get familiar smells, and that kind of triggers these nostalgic memories. And for some people, that\u07f4s especially powerful, because a lot of their memories were around interacting with food.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I think that\u07f4s another way of thinking about it, is try to figure out, \u201cWell, what is it in your life that really would help you interrogate these memories and extract meaningful things from them?\u201d And journaling is a powerful way to do that. There\u07f4s a whole bunch of other research, unrelated to nostalgia, on the power of journaling. There\u07f4s something that seems very powerful about writing out things, but just to say it\u07f4s not the only way. There\u07f4s lots of ways to creatively engage with these memories.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> You said something, Clay, that nostalgia could help me feel younger, help one feel younger. I don\u07f4t quite understand that. How does that work?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yeah. So we actually got this idea because we started to see news stories where people were talking. I don\u07f4t know. Have you ever heard of these adult camps? Kids go to camp sometimes, like summer camp?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Well, there was this phenomenon a number of years ago where they were putting camps together for adults, but it was like a summer camp for kids. They would do a lot of the activities they did when they were kids. OK, so maybe that\u07f4s just like\u2026 most adults aren\u07f4t going to summer camp, but it\u07f4s like, \u201cWell, what\u07f4s that tapping into?\u201d And another thing I was thinking about is music. A lot of our music nostalgia is for music from our youth, our teenage years, and there\u07f4s something, there\u07f4s actually this concept called the reminiscence bump, which is we tend to have a very positive attitude towards pop-cultural trends and products that were prominent in our youth, whether it\u07f4s cars or fashions or music, movies. So there\u07f4s something about youthfulness that we tend to associate with a lot of nostalgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, you can be nostalgic about anything for any time in your life, it doesn\u07f4t have to be like when you\u07f4re a kid or your teenage years, but there\u07f4s something about, we like the pop-cultural phenomenon, and we like these kinds of experiences associated with childhood and youth. And there\u07f4s this whole line of research in developmental psychology about the life course. So developmental psychology, we tend to think of as being about little kids, but we develop throughout our whole lives, we go through different phases of life that many of us are still maturing, even in middle age and beyond. So there\u07f4s something in this research that they found that people don\u07f4t always feel their age, and so there\u07f4s a difference between biological age and what\u07f4s sometimes referred to as subjective age. And so some people feel younger than they are, some people feel older than they are, depending on a whole host of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so we found this research was like, \u201cOh, people\u07f4s perception of their age, how old they feel, doesn\u07f4t always map onto how they actually are biologically.\u201d And then we wondered, \u201cWell, we wonder if nostalgia is involved in that at all.\u201d Now, there might be all sorts of things that make people feel younger than they are or older than they are, but we are especially interested in nostalgia, of course. And what we found is when people spend a few minutes writing about a nostalgic memory, listening to nostalgic music, so we took people from 18 up to 80 some years old, and we had them write about a nostalgic experience or listen to nostalgic music.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what we found is for young people, engaging in nostalgic reflection didn\u07f4t really change how old they felt. We knew their actual age, and we would ask them, how old do you feel? And young people feel young, basically. But what we noticed is as people got older, we started to see this divergence between how old they were and how old they felt if they engaged in nostalgia. And it was around, depending on the study, it was around the age of 39, 40, 41, we did this across all our studies, but basically the punchline is around 40 years of age, nostalgia starts to make people feel statistically significantly younger than they actually are.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then we didn\u07f4t just ask them about their age, we gave them these other things, like do you think you could run as fast as a young person? Do you think you could do this? Do you think you could do that? And what we found is when people are nostalgic above the age of 40 or so, that nostalgia helps them feel a lot younger than they are. We call this paper the<\/span> Fountain of Youth<\/span><\/i>, and it seems to have something to do in these memories, we\u07f4re recapturing that feeling of what it felt like to be young again, and it\u07f4s energizing.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so a lot of the things that we do as we age naturally, as we listen to old music, rewatch old movies that we love, just get together with friends and talk about old memories and things like that, I think that has a powerful function of reminding us of the energetic, youthful spirit we had when we were young. And the reason I think that there\u07f4s something special about that period of time in youth is that\u07f4s really when we\u07f4re becoming our true selves, that\u07f4s when we\u07f4re starting to get freedom, and we\u07f4re starting to getting to decide what we want to do with our lives, when we\u07f4re not just\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

When you\u07f4re little, you kind of have to play with whoever your parents put you in front of. You have to kind of do whatever your parents say. But once you enter adolescence, you start to have more opportunities to develop your own friendship networks, to figure out what you want to do with your career or with your life going forward, form your own path forward. And there seems to be something powerful about that time of self-development of really figuring out who you are or starting to figure that out, I should say, and we like re-tapping into that. People will talk about how they felt free, they felt optimistic, they felt hopeful, they felt energized. They had all this youthful energy and having opportunities to reconnect with that.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we get older, when we often feel like, \u201cOh, we\u07f4ve got all these responsibilities and duties and life\u07f4s difficult, we\u07f4re paying bills, we\u07f4re raising kids, we\u07f4re taking care of older family members, we\u07f4re doing all these adult responsibilities,\u201d it can be very, very helpful to tap into that youthful energy again. This sort of reminds us of, \u201cOh, yeah. I used to like that, I used to laugh at those things, I used to enjoy those things.\u201d And so I think cultivating hobbies and activities around that is a good way to feel young at heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I want to call our conversation \u201cThe Surprising Powers of Nostalgia.\u201d Did you discover anything, Clay, in your research where you said, \u201cWhoa, this is so surprising. I wouldn\u07f4t have known that. This is so surprising?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yeah, a few things. So one we talked about earlier, which is the extent to which people have nostalgic memories that involve very, very difficult, unpleasant, even tragic experiences in their life really helps reveal the bittersweet nature of nostalgia. We often feel very positive, nostalgia lifts our spirits, it increases our positive mood, but it comes with this tinge of sadness and loss too. And so I was kind of surprised at the sort of, again, it\u07f4s not that everyone\u07f4s sharing those types of experience or even that most people are, but that there is this element of people can find nostalgia in a lot of difficult life circumstances. And so that was very educational, and it was also very helpful for thinking about, well, why, getting to that, the functional use of nostalgia. Is nostalgia just a fun distraction, or is it really useful in some other ways?<\/span><\/p>\n

And those type of memories really served, to me, as a good clue that nostalgia is not just about silly stuff from our youth. You know what I mean? In popular culture, at least, we often think of, \u201cOh, nostalgia is about the fashions from our youth, and it\u07f4s just sort of a fun entertaining thing.\u201d And I think that\u07f4s definitely true, that\u07f4s part of it. But those types of memories really revealed that there\u07f4s often a very, very deep existential, even very difficult life experiences that people derive a lot of sense of meaning from and that they have nostalgia for. So that was one thing that was surprising.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other thing that was really surprising and really has played a dramatic role in changing my own view of nostalgia, which has evolved over the years, is the amount of future-oriented language that I\u07f4ve seen in people\u07f4s nostalgic stories. What I mean by that is a lot of times you\u07f4ll see a story where we will say, \u201cOK, share a nostalgic memory with us and how it makes you feel,\u201d and people will write something like, \u201cOh, I used to do this, I used to spend summers with my grandmother, or I used to go after school with my friends and do this thing, and it was really special.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And a lot of times at the end of that, you\u07f4ll see, \u201cAnd this makes me feel grateful, or this makes me feel hopeful, or this makes me feel optimistic.\u201d And you started to see these clues of, well, people aren\u07f4t just saying, \u201cOh, I had these great experiences behind me and thanks for reminding me of them. It\u07f4s kind of nice to revisit them.\u201d They were saying, \u201cThat\u07f4s actually helpful for me going forward,\u201d and that was unsolicited. At the time, I didn\u07f4t have any sense that nostalgia would make people optimistic or any kind of future-oriented thinking, I really thought it was just going to comfort them to revisit that.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so seeing the amount of positive language in these narratives really was what started to get not just me, but other researchers thinking that, is nostalgia really just about the past, or is it kind of energizing? Is it kind of like a future-oriented experience? And that really started to drive a lot of our research to where we actually more explicitly did experiments looking at future-oriented thinking. So we\u07f4d have people write about nostalgic event or some other type of event, and then we would explicitly ask them, we\u07f4d give them questionnaires about how optimistic they are about the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what we\u07f4d find is people who engaged in nostalgic reflection became more optimistic about the future than people who thought about other types of life experiences. That was something I did not expect, I did not expect that people would\u07f4ve this future-oriented sort of angle to their nostalgic memories, and that really shifted the focus from me thinking of nostalgia as this defensive, past-oriented experience to really a more future-oriented experience that\u2026 another way of saying it is I used to think of, \u201cOK, so life\u07f4s difficult. People are going through something, so they turn to the past for comfort. And that\u07f4s good for them, because once they\u07f4re comforted, they\u07f4ll relax, and they\u07f4ll be like, \u07f5OK, now I can move forward.\u07f4\u201d But that\u07f4s a very defensive way of thinking of nostalgia. It meets like a psychological defense.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then I started to think of nostalgia as, \u201cWell, no, people aren\u07f4t just comforting themselves. They\u07f4re actually looking for ideas, they\u07f4re looking for inspiration. There\u07f4s a future-oriented motivation there.\u201d They might not realize they\u07f4re doing it, I\u07f4m not saying people are consciously saying, \u201cOK, I need some ideas. I\u07f4ll retreat to my memories.\u201d I just think our brains are doing that. \u201cWhere do I get ideas? Well, I get ideas from all the things, the experiences I\u07f4ve accumulated over time, and maybe some of those experiences are especially important, and nostalgia helps direct me towards those, especially important ones.\u201d It kind of filters. Nostalgia is like, \u201cOh, I have this bank of special memories, and nostalgia helps me access those, and those special memories are what I need to have ideas going forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Historians will say, \u201cWell, we need to study the past because that helps us build a better future,\u201d and we think about that, most people would agree with that at a large civilizational level, \u201cLearn the lessons of history.\u201d I think this happens on a very intimate personal level, at the individual level, which is we need our personal life histories to build a better future, and nostalgia can help direct us towards the elements of our life that we think really, not that we want to repeat those things, which is, I think, another kind of myth about nostalgia. People aren\u07f4t just trying to repeat the past. What they\u07f4re saying is, \u201cThere\u07f4s something special in the past that\u07f4d be nice to incorporate into my life going forward. Even if my life\u07f4s dramatically different going forward, there\u07f4s something there that I\u07f4d like to incorporate into that.\u201d And I think that discovering that by just reading people\u07f4s nostalgic memories changed the course of this research dramatically.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Clay, I want to end on a personal note, if that\u07f4s OK. So I\u07f4m going to ask you to share with us a nostalgic memory that has some superpower effect for you in your life. Can you do that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Yes. The memory I\u07f4m about to share I like because I think it is an example of a memory that, on the surface, people would say, \u201cOh, that just shows that nostalgia is kind of this consumer phenomenon. People just sell you, companies just like to sell you stuff that reminds you of the past.\u201d There are people that have this very consumer view of nostalgia, right? Companies are just tapping and they\u07f4re exploiting your nostalgia to sell you stuff. And I think that there are, of course, obviously that\u07f4s a very powerful marketing strategy, but that\u07f4s not really why I think people care about products from their past.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the memory that I\u07f4d like to share is when I was a kid, my parents didn\u07f4t have much money. We were poor. And I remember wanting a Nintendo really badly. Other kids at school had a Nintendo. This was in the early, mid-\u07f480s, 1980\u07f4s when this just came out. Other kids had a Nintendo. We couldn\u07f4t afford a Nintendo, so we didn\u07f4t get a Nintendo. And the Nintendo had been out a couple of years, and lots of people had these Nintendos, and we didn\u07f4t have one. And then one Christmas, we got a Nintendo, and I don\u07f4t know how my parents pulled it off or how they afforded it, but it was a really, really big deal. And to this day, I don\u07f4t have a lot of time to play video games, I\u07f4d rather spend time outside in nature doing other things, but I still have this strong attachment to Nintendo, and I still play. I have the new one, the Nintendo Switch, the new Nintendo, and Nintendo obviously is a company that\u07f4s built a great deal of success around nostalgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the reason I\u07f4m sharing that memory is because people will be like, \u201cOh, Christmas morning you got this Nintendo. That seems like a really superficial nostalgic memory. You care about this stupid product, this stupid electronic product that you got.\u201d But the reason that\u07f4s a special memory is because I knew it was a hardship for my parents. And at the time, I was a kid, so I didn\u07f4t really think about that. But looking back on it, I knew that my parents, they must\u07f4ve worked really hard to make that happen. That must\u07f4ve been very difficult, and I definitely cherished that Nintendo very much.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so I think a lot of times people think of nostalgia about objects as being materialistic or kind of silly, but if you look at people\u07f4s nostalgic memories around objects, even things like trophies or people will have their high school letter jacket or trophy from something they won when they were a kid or a movie collection, collection is another great example, people have all sorts of collections of objects, collectors, it might seem like materialistic on the surface, but really those objects are just symbols that remind you of what was really going on.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have all these memories playing Nintendo with my younger brother. Most of my nostalgic memories, most of my video game memories are not isolated experiences of me sitting in a room by myself, just vegging out in front of the TV. They\u07f4re playing video games with my brother, they\u07f4re playing video games with our neighbors and things like that. So I share that memory because I think a lot of times people should, if you think of something even in your own life, you think, \u201cOh, that\u07f4s kind of a silly thing that I care about. I care about this.\u201d Whether it\u07f4s antique dishes, old quilts, old photographs, a vinyl record collection, or any of these things, most of the time, those things are just symbols that help connect you to what\u07f4s really important, which is who you were with, the relationships that were involved in getting that thing, sharing that thing, experiencing that thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

So our nostalgia for objects, for things is really a nostalgia for people and for relationships. And that\u07f4s why I like to share that memory, because I think it nicely captures that most of the stuff that people dismiss as superficial consumer nostalgia, actually, if you scratch just a bit, you\u07f4ll find something much deeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Clay Routledge, you have opened my mind and my heart to the surprising powers of nostalgia. Thank you so much. He\u07f4s the author of the new book, <\/span>Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live A More Meaningful Life<\/span><\/i>. Thanks so much, Clay.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CR:<\/b> Thank you so much. It was good to chat with you.<\/span><\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> And if you\u07f4d like to watch <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> on video and participate in the after-show Q&A session with our guests, come join us on Sounds True One, a new membership community featuring award-winning original shows, live classes, community learning, guided meditations, and more with the leading wisdom teachers of our time. Use promo code PODCAST to get your first month free. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com. Sounds True, waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-20511","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Surprising Powers Of Nostalgia - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with The Surprising Powers Of Nostalgia. 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