Nostalgia locates desire in the past where it suffers no active conflict and can be yearned toward pleasantly.

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Nostalgia locates desire in the past where it suffers no active conflict and can be yearned toward pleasantly. The movement of nostalgia occurs by running memory time backward. This does not mean that it is a passive process, however. Rather, nostalgia is an active process that requires imagination to bring present events into the past.

Nostalgia is therefore not simply a passive longing for the past, but also an active striving for the future. The ability to remember the past with fondness serves as a vehicle for the production of the future.

Source: Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose On Poetry

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