I was watching Point Break (the classic original, not the silly, pointless remake) with my son last week, and I felt the familiar pangs of nostalgia. Point Break is the movie I have seen the most times, probably between 50 and 100, though it’s entirely possible that number is higher. There were weekends my best friend and I watched it 2 or 3 times, almost beginning immediately after rewinding the VHS tape. We saw it in the theater over 20 times (this was before we’d have to work 2 full time jobs to afford to go to the movie theater)! I still love it more than is reasonable.

Later last week, I heard Round Here, by the Counting Crows, and Rebel Yell, by Billy Idol, on the radio. Also, The awesome John Cougar Mellencamp 2 disc greatest hit collection is now in my car CD player. Who knows when that’ll come out? I cried at the Wham! Netflix documentary. The heartache of this nostalgia is nearly unbearable sometimes.

Nostalgia means “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations,” and I think it’s generally regarded as fairly unhealthy. Another dictionary writes, it’s an “excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition,” and brings to mind the white-washing of the “good old days,” which in all likelihood were not so very good, certainly not as good as we remember, and a return would be cultural/social regression.

Nostalgia can also be an avoidance of mindful presence in the here & now. My nostalgia is strange to me, because there is no place I’d rather be than here & now. There is no part of the past that was better for me than right now. I am married to the Angel, to name just one very amazing reason (but I could go on and on, as you know if you’ve read any of the posts on this site.)

I love music, and for a music lover, my Amazon Music app, with it’s algorithm that knows me and what I like even better than my sister, (I am currently listening to “My Discovery Mix,” where the algorithm gives me 25 songs I’ve never heard by artists I’ve never heard of that they are absolutely right to think I’ll like) is a perfect divine gift. I write a blog, am fairly active on Facebook (because I’m a million years old), stream my tv shows, wear Bluetooth headphones to the gym where I check in via QR code on another app. I do crossword puzzles on my phone. For a Luddite, I’m not a very committed one. All of these facts make my nostalgia quite peculiar, so why is it so pronounced when I hear any ‘90’s alternative rock songs before 1995, when the genre started to eat itself?

And I think I know.

On December 2nd of 1983, the 13 minute short-film music video for “Thriller” was released. I watched it at my neighbor’s house with my cousins and our families. We all had our minds blown together. And that’s why I feel nostalgic, and why I think it’s not unhealthy at all, and is, instead, our souls crying out to us in sadness and lack. Our souls asking us to fix us.

We all watched Seinfeld together, in our own homes, and talked about it Friday morning. We all heard Round Here on the same radio stations. There is nothing like that now. When we want to talk about most of the best new songs, we have to send links first. There are so few communal activities in art anymore. Everybody watches the Super Bowl, even if they don’t like or care about football or the teams, because we all do it together, as one people. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are sort of similar, I guess, in that we all know what they’re doing in real time.

We’re created for community, to be together, and when we are not, we feel that lonely emptiness. And we desperately search for it, and there’s few places to find it, really. On one level, I love the local church for the same reason I love the relic that was Top 40 Radio. Because we experience(d) it together. And don’t even get me started on the heartbreaking extinction of record stores.

Our hearts are begging us to find others with whom to walk through our lives. That’s nostalgia. Not because Silver Spoons or Diff’rent Strokes were particularly great, but because families watched them together at the same day, same time, each week. We laughed together, cried together, waited together. We had the same reference banks, and while that sounds superficial, I assure you that in a divided world, it is not. We have forgotten that we are all human, that we have far more in common than we don’t, and that loss of shared experience has a huge cost. We are all human beings, and we are made to love each other, in the same rooms, facing the same directions, no matter how far removed we get.

Nostalgia is just a subtle reminder that we miss it. A lot.

So I watched 2 documentaries lately: Class Action Park, about Action Park in New Jersey, and Humanity Insanity: Throwaway Society, about the modern rush into total disposability.

If it matters, they’re both terrific. But as the final comments wrapped up Class Action Park, I found myself with a knot in my throat and watery eyes. It’s true, I am what’s called an easy cry (which was why my total indifference in the new Thor movie was such a surprising giveaway to how I felt about it), but a documentary about a man’s avarice manifesting as complete indifference to the safety of his customers was an unexpected place to feel that well rising from my soft heart.

I have a business degree and, while I don’t remember everything I learned, I’m fairly certain that seriously injuring (and sometimes killing) patrons is not a viable strategy for long term growth. Who knows? The ‘80’s were a different time.

That’s what I mean, though. I grew up in the ‘80’s and it was a very different time. Does everyone romanticize their childhood? I’ve heard so many jokes about “back in my day…” and “when I was young…” and now I’m discovering that I say the exact same things.

Humanity Insanity detailed a rapid decline into a society where everything is made to discard; goods, feelings, people. That’s true. There are apps on our phones that’s purpose is to erase the messages immediately after they’re read. We delete all imperfect photos. Single serving. Planned Obsolescence. Half of all the food produced on earth is thrown away. Most marriages end in divorce. We shop for our churches and might stay for a few weeks, then move on.

I know, I know, I sound like everyone’s dad, but as I watched the people reminisce about this ridiculous amusement park, their memories were real, the relationships continued, the scars remained, the place is still there (albeit under a changed name.)

With a longer shelf life, we truly experienced these things; toys, movies, seasons, phases & fads. We listened to entire albums for months. Back To The Future was in the Top 10 for 24 weeks!!!! 6 months! The new Dr Strange is out of theaters, streaming and forgotten on Disney+ in 6 weeks. Singles come and go before we know the lyrics and can sing along. My boys barely remember what they did this morning, while I can recall every one of my MASK toys and every episode of Three’s Company. No one is getting weepy over the 2020’s (well, maybe they are, but for wildly different reasons.) No one will remember the 1 hit wonders of the 2 thousands – because here aren’t any. We had a nearby park where everybody went on weekends that looked like Golf N’Stuff from Karate Kid. And pickup games every day. I haven’t seen a 10 year old outside in days.

I wonder if this nostalgia I feel is for the connection. I miss my best friend and going to my neighbor’s house (with everybody else) to watch the premiere of the Thriller video. I miss my friends being flesh and blood and not simply a number on Facebook. I miss playing.

We’ve certainly gained so many great things, but maybe nostalgia is nothing more than an acknowledgment of what we’ve lost. I wouldn’t go back to the ‘80’s for anything, but is it too much to ask to bring some of the ‘80’s into today?