I've got a warning for you: You can never go back.
Welcome back to CapOhTV, the channel where we know school is a joke and you don't want
to be the punchline.
If you want to help spread that message that school is a joke, hit that subscribe button
now and tell a friend about it.
This video is a warning about nostalgia.
Today, nostalgia is all around us.
There are retro video games, there are remakes and reboots of every TV and movie series you
can imagine and there's throwback Thursdays for goodness sake!
When this term “Nostalgia” was first used in the 17th century, it was used in the sense
of being a disease of the mind.
These days we just use it when we're thinking of the good old days, when we're reflecting
on our past experience and we're trying to remember the happy times.
And, you know, most people do enjoy thinking about the good old days, whether those good
old days were yesterday (before you broke up with your girlfriend) or 15 years ago (when
you were the captain of the high school football team.
There's nothing wrong with reflecting on your past.
But here's my warning again: you can never go back.
No matter how hard you try, you can never be in the moment again.
Spending too much time thinking, “If only things were the way they used to
be,” will ruin your life!
And I guess that's why they classified this as a mental disease back in the 17th century.
The medical student who coined the term “nostalgia” used it when he was observing Swiss mercenaries
who were fighting away from home.
They were longing to go home, they were apathetic and melancholy and,
“Oh, I wish I could go home, this sucks being away from home.
I want to go back, I want to go back.”
And there's nothing wrong with wanting to go back.
But being stuck thinking about the past is going to destroy you.
A lot of my own nostalgic feelings come from video games and childhood toys that I no longer
have.
That's why I like going to flea markets and thrift stores and finding this stuff for cheap
because I feel like it brings me back to that time when life was simpler and all I had to
do was hit a button on the controller to make things better.
And when I first started collecting a couple years ago I was so entrapped by the nostalgia
of it all, that feeling that I could just go back to that moment, that I could just
be there again and life would be perfect that I would buy everything that I saw.
I was stuck.
I was thinking that these things, that this stuff, would somehow allow me to get transported
back to that time.
And this is something that people do all the time.
And you might even be doing it right now without realizing it.
I bet there are some things that you have, that you keep and you hold onto, things that
you might never use, things that have no purpose in your life other than to serve as a connection
with your past.
In my mind, I was thinking if I get rid of this Nintendo 64, then I'll forget what it
was like being a kid and going over to my friend's house and playing Nintendo 64.
Or if I sell this Playstation, then I'm going to forget what it was like getting my first
Playstation on Christmas.
Or even the Super Nintendo, the NES, all of those systems I have a connection with.
And I was stuck thinking that the physical console or the controller or the game itself
keeps me connected to my past.
When, really, it's not the things, it's not the stuff, it's not everything that surrounds
you...
It's your memory that is the nostalgia.
And it's your memory that lets your reflect on the good old days.
You don't need to have piles and piles of stuff to get you there.
Some of my favorite games growing up were Super Mario Bros on the NES, Super Mario World
on the Super Nintendo, and then Spyro the Dragon on Playstation.
Yes, it feels good to play those.
I can think back and say, “Wow, my childhood was pretty good.”
But no matter how hard I try, I can't get the feeling of playing it for the first time.
And it doesn't just have to be a video game.
It could be anything, any event in your life that you look back on with fond memories.
You can never go back to that.
You can remember it, you can reminisce about it, but you cannot dwell on it.
You cannot sit here today and say, “The past was so much better than right now.”
Because, really, it probably wasn't.
You're only remembering the good parts.
You're only remembering the things that made you who you are today.
And the bad things made you who are just as much as the good parts of your life.
Living in the past is a cliché.
Don't do it!
It's okay to reminisce about the past sometimes.
But you can't live there.
You can't stay there.
You cannot live in the past.
That is over, you can never go back, it's time to move on.
You can't change the past, for better or worse.
You'll always have your memories, you can always go visit every once in awhile.
But you have to steer your future.
If you are stuck right now in the present thinking about the way things used to be,
you are going to be going nowhere.
As a human being you have the ability to formulate ideas, make decisions, and take action.
That's what it means to be human.
Today, if you are stuck in a nostalgic rut, look around you...
The things that you see, the things that you think connect you to your past, they don't.
It's all your memories.
Even if all of your stuff was destroyed right now, you would still have your memories, you
can still go visit.
It's easy to dwell on the past, it's easy to live there, it's comfortable, it's familiar.
But it takes serious work and effort to build your future.
You have the power to formulate ideas, make decisions, and take action.
Remember, you can never go back.
Have you ever been caught in a nostalgia trap?
If so, leave a comment down below, I'd love to talk about this topic some more.
And if this is your first time here on CapOhTV and you like what you see, hit that subscribe
button now and help spread the message that school is a joke!
Thanks for watching, see you later, bye.