Alessandro BariccoIt's a strange grief… to die of nostalgia for something you you will never live.
About This Quote
Nostalgia is a strange grief. It can be a beautiful thing. It's a longing for something you have no chance of ever experiencing again. Nostalgia can also be a terrible thing.
It's a sickness, one that can rob you of your ability to enjoy the present and make you yearn for what you can't have. So, what is nostalgia? According to Dictionary.com, nostalgia is "an irresistible desire or nostalgia for something that has been or will be absent or past" (1). Let's take a closer look at that definition and see if it rings true with you. 1.
An irresistible desire First, we need to understand the word "irresistible." This implies something which is almost impossible to deny. It's almost like an itch that needs to be scratched and you know right away that there's only one way to get rid of it: scratching it. So, we must ask: What kind of itch does this definition speak of? Well, we all know what it feels like when we get an itch that won't go away--it's just plain annoying! We scratch it and grow more uncomfortable by the moment.
The only way to get rid of the discomfort caused by this itch is to scratch it even more! Don't we all want our problems solved? We're human after all and so many times we must ask: Are we really supposed to suffer without knowing how everything will turn out? We can never know everything and yet we often wish we did so we could plan accordingly no matter the outcome. The word "irresistible" forces us to focus on the difficulty we face in dealing with our difficulties rather than our desires for relief from them. It doesn't make sense for people who are suffering from an itch they can't scratch because they don't exist! If they did exist, they would make everything better! The only reason people suffer from an itch they cannot scratch is because they refuse to acknowledge their need for relief! They are too busy denying reality in favor of their desires for things they will never have! So, if someone says that something is irresistible, then they are saying that something is really difficult to ignore or deny even though everyone knows that its existence is impossible.
When someone says that something is irresistible, most likely they are referring to some kind of desire which cannot be fulfilled unless people are willing to ignore reality in favor of their desires so long as the phrase "but I'll never have it" is
Source: Silk
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