About the power of the past Recently I heard a statement that nostalgia is a form of denial of reality, allowing a person to escape from a difficult present in a certain golden age. The time is when everything was good and carefree. Probably, everyone has their own loved time. For some, this is the 20s of the 20th century in Western Europe - the heyday of new trends in culture, for other years of the post-war USA with rapid economic growth or the crazy eighties of Reagan. Or the same “Perestroika” by Gorbachev. But for me personally, one thing remains a mystery, how to understand that right now, just today, you live in the “golden age” - the most beautiful and majestic time that you will remember until your death? Folks say that in youth, the sky seems higher and the grass is greener. Maybe. Well, then what to do with those people who did not live, for example, during the hippie movement, but who consider the 60s to be their time? How can you explain the desire of many people to get away from the routine of the present into the world of spirits and traditions of their ancestors? What is this matrix failure or denial of the very essence of the present time? Let's discuss this topic together. The first thing that distinguishes a golden time from a non-golden one is the presence of hope or prospects. No one would want to live during the Black Death epidemic that destroyed half of Europe's population in the 14th century. But there are a lot of people gravitating towards the time of the Renaissance, which began at the end of the same 14th century. This means that people are attracted to the past not just by hope, but by certain events what happened. But there are people and objects behind the events. They also personify the era. That same golden age. Through old objects, a person gets a sense of belonging to the time, where he feel good himself. Listening to old music, watching old films, using audio cassettes instead of DVD, VHS, instead of Flac - a person creates around himself the atmosphere that he wants to see. Filling his mind with works and texts of the past, a person reprograms his mind to other standards and values. Be it the works of ancient philosophers or the outstanding works of Hemingway. Nostalgia in its purest form is not a mass phenomenon. Rather, groups of selected people are nostalgic for one reason or another. But what is at the root of this phenomenon? It's not just not a craving for old things or ideas, there is something more here. At all times, when the future seemed vague and uncertain, people always turned to the past. By the time when everything seemed clear and understandable. Many of my fellow citizens still want to go back to the 60s of the 20th century in the USSR to the great shock construction projects of socialism. Because then, there were no diseases and problems from which society is now suffering. This means that the roots of nostalgia lie, firstly, in the absence of hope and confidence in the future, and secondly, they are based on the inability to adapt to the modern society. Except when nostalgia is caused by natural causes. This means that a person experiencing nostalgic feelings in relation to a particular era becomes a sociopath in one form or another in relation to the society of his time. So if you are reading this Phlog, then you may be a sociopath....