Nostalgia for an idyllic past – 06/26/2023 – Vera Iaconelli

Stories of a period of youth in which people would have lived the prime of life are not rare. The student dormitories, the garage where a band’s first rehearsals were held, actors recalling the troubles of their early careers, traveling the world with no money, stories that always come back in adult conversation in a nostalgic tone.

They refer to a period in which the young man was beginning to know himself beyond family expectations and to experience himself in the face of challenges that served to reveal how much he could count on himself. Sexuality, autonomy, values, competences and limits: the leap towards oneself is considerable. The thing does not go without fear, weeping and gnashing of teeth, otherwise it would not be a transformation process, just a cosmetic experience.

It is a period in which financial ostentation is viewed with a bad eye, as it only reveals what the family of origin has earned and not what the young person has achieved. This moment of exception in the ferocious capitalist logic allows us to enjoy relationships of camaraderie without the burden of “do you know who you are talking to?” which usually appears later.

Far from the familiar, living the idea of ​​an open future and without the weight of financial status, relationships between young people end up focusing on loyalty and more intimate exchanges, which depend on creating bonds of trust and solidarity. After this period, each one follows his path and assumes his position in the face of his desire and from the contingencies that life imposes.

The assumption of adult life, in which the negotiation between the dreamed project and what was realized is the subject of countless works of fiction, (I highly recommend the lovely “Somebody, somewhere” by Jay Duplass). The fantasy of an idyllic youth occupies different places in maturity, now serving as inspiration, now pulling the subject into a paralyzing melancholy. What is at stake in the last one is the haunting of a parallel life that would have been idyllic, but wasn’t by default of the subject.

Psychoanalysis, however, does not give all this “teaspoon” to the nostalgic. Life’s contingencies — which we often use as an excuse — made us make infinite decisions and take positions. These decisions reveal our unconscious desires, as they indicate whether the subject has paid the price of paying for his desire or whether he has alienated himself from what he supposed others expect from him, that is, the desire of the other. Wanting something beyond what the parents achieved or going against their expectations involves a considerable narcissistic cost. Desiring something that can put the psyche to the test, too.

We have, on the other hand, circumstances that prevent us from doing something we were committed to body and soul, such as wars, diseases, pandemics, economic collapses, social vulnerability, gender, race. All of this causes enormous suffering and frustration and the mourning that results from these external impediments must be done so that the subject continues his life creating new paths for himself. However, this is not where nostalgia hides. It is the unfulfilled dream, due to alienation and fear, that keeps the subject indebted to himself, trapped in the fantasy of what could have been. To escape this, all that remains is to assume ethically what was possible and reconcile with oneself.

Furthermore, believing that the future was only open in youth is a self-indulgent and alienating fantasy, which keeps the subject repeating in the present what he assumes to be a choice from the past. As long as we are alive, repetition and rupture will continue to be entirely our responsibility.

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