Why do our warmest memories sort of hurt? You know the feeling. An old home video from childhood where you’re opening Christmas presents in the company of siblings and cousins, or the memory box from high school full of photos and scribblings featuring your long-lost best friends.
We miss these times. Though they were challenging at the time (being a teenager is hard) you can’t help but look back on those years as more…simple.
Today, we want to show you a short YouTube video called “A Love Letter To Star Wars” that depicts a young man lost in the nostalgia of the Star Wars prequel era (1999-2006). He seems lonely. Alienated from the Star Wars of today. The past makes him smile.
We feel that. There’s a wonderful book I read recently called Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live A More Meaningful Life by Dr. Clay Routledge which makes a compelling case for the value of nostalgic feeling.
Rather than treating nostalgia as a negative experience that traps people in the past and prevents growth, Routledge explains how nostalgia directs our future actions.
The past isn’t the true destination; it’s just where we go to grab supplies for the trip
Nostalgia is a clue in our subconscious about what makes us feel whole. We lose those things along the way due to circumstances and the ever-changing nature of the world. But every day we have a chance to build a new life. So how are you using those nostalgic feelings to guide your decision making?
Something I picked up from a biography of C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) was that he believed God speaks to us in our childhood loves. Lewis spoke of nostalgia often but in terms of how God attempts to show us who we really are and what gifts he gave us that perhaps we’ve squandered.
Did you love animals when you were 10 years old and dream of being a zoo keeper? Lewis believed that this might have been the real you. That doesn’t mean that you have to be a zoo keeper, but it might mean you were gifted the heart of a nurturer. That could mean being a teacher, a dog kennel operator, or a parent to a big flock of children.
If you loved Star Wars (deeply) like Riley and I both do, the idea is that this is not a flash-in-the-pan kind of phase you went through, but a deeper reality about something in your heart.
We lose touch with that deeper truth when we enter the life of career, making money, paying bills, managing debt, and other sorts of mundane adult pressures.
I made peace with that deeper truth several years ago and decided not to segregate Star Wars and “geeky” stories from my adult life. I think I was meant to adore these stories and reframe them for my adult peers.
I think I was meant to do something like we’re doing at Geeky Stoics.
I know that because of nostalgic feelings toward Star Wars, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and my childhood friendships.
This might be why C.S. Lewis dedicated The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to his God-daughter, saying
“I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.”
Did you catch that?
Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
Enjoy this video podcast of Geeky Stoics, and let us know what you think in the Comments.
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