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Our children will never know the world we lost
I feel like 2019 was the last year that felt "normal" if that makes any sense
As of recent I've found myself doomscrolling on Instagram (despite the fact my about me here says I'm tired of monotonous corporate slop, ironic isn't it?) and I came across these edits of old home photos/videos from the late 1990's to early 2010's, especially ones from around Christmas, and I realized just how long ago all of that truly was. Despite the fact tat I lived through that time, it feels so foreign and alien to me now, almost as if it happened in another world.
Unfortunately I don't actually remember much of those days, sure I can remember the general culture (media, some of the politics, etc.) but I have very few actual personal memories more than 7 years old max, I don't think I've ever mentioned it here before but I have some very mild brain damage caused by COVID-19 as well as a drug overdose I survived when I was 15 years old, this has left me in a state of perpetual brain fog where nothing ever really feels completely clear, I space out several times per hour and sometimes it feels like I'm walking through water, the memory problems might also be caused by trauma I suffered at 11 but I'm not entirely sure. What I do know is that I have an incredible sense of depersonalization because of all this, from my perspective I essentially just spawned in one day with memories that don't belong to me, I am fundamentally not the same person as my child self, I refer to him in the third person because he doesn't even feel like me in the metaphysical sense, we are for all intents and purposes two entirely separate people, I have his memories and know the people he knew, live where he used to live, etc., but he is not me, and I cannot tell where he ends and I begin. I know it's a dumb comparison but the only analogue I can think of is Nick Valentine from Fallout 4.
Regardless, I've been going on for too long, my main point is this:
Even though I can't remember much of that time, I know it was better than what we have now
As of recent I've found myself doomscrolling on Instagram (despite the fact my about me here says I'm tired of monotonous corporate slop, ironic isn't it?) and I came across these edits of old home photos/videos from the late 1990's to early 2010's, especially ones from around Christmas, and I realized just how long ago all of that truly was. Despite the fact tat I lived through that time, it feels so foreign and alien to me now, almost as if it happened in another world.
Unfortunately I don't actually remember much of those days, sure I can remember the general culture (media, some of the politics, etc.) but I have very few actual personal memories more than 7 years old max, I don't think I've ever mentioned it here before but I have some very mild brain damage caused by COVID-19 as well as a drug overdose I survived when I was 15 years old, this has left me in a state of perpetual brain fog where nothing ever really feels completely clear, I space out several times per hour and sometimes it feels like I'm walking through water, the memory problems might also be caused by trauma I suffered at 11 but I'm not entirely sure. What I do know is that I have an incredible sense of depersonalization because of all this, from my perspective I essentially just spawned in one day with memories that don't belong to me, I am fundamentally not the same person as my child self, I refer to him in the third person because he doesn't even feel like me in the metaphysical sense, we are for all intents and purposes two entirely separate people, I have his memories and know the people he knew, live where he used to live, etc., but he is not me, and I cannot tell where he ends and I begin. I know it's a dumb comparison but the only analogue I can think of is Nick Valentine from Fallout 4.
Regardless, I've been going on for too long, my main point is this:
Even though I can't remember much of that time, I know it was better than what we have now
Sure maybe it's just the nostalgia talking that makes me see everything with rose tinted glasses, but I swear that even without that, without the nostalgia or the youthful innocence that comes with having been a child, I know intuitively the world back then was better, more simplistic. Even though most of us on this site probably lived through it, it's easy to forget that there was a time before the pandemic, when AI wasn't even a thought in the average persons mind, when "going online" was something you had to actively do and being offline was the default state of being as opposed to the inverse we have today, when technology was popular but had not yet permeated every sector of our daily lives, and when everyone had their own personalized website or page as opposed to now rotating between the same 4 social media sites (and yea SpaceHey kinda brings that back but it isn't the norm like it once was). I'm sure you get the idea at this point, but I'm trying to say that the world we have today is pitiful compared to those times. I would give literally anything to go back.
It is as a sweet siren song calling sailors to their doom, I feel like Odysseus on his journey home to Ithaca, wishing to hear them calling to him, ordering his men to untie him so he may follow their music to his own demise, perhaps that is what my longing is. Therein lies the rub, loving the past to such a degree can make you hate yourself in the present.
I used to think my father was delusional when he would talk about how much better the 1950's-1970's was than my time, but now I understand exactly what he was talking about. I can't prove it but I know 2016 was a pivotal year that truly was the turning point in our society, and whatever it was that made those days so special gradually decreased until it was completely snuffed out before the new decade.
Maybe I just sound like a crabby old man going "you kids and your technology, back in my day...." but I feel like it really was better, as if Millennials and early to mid Gen Z were the last ones that can really claim "the good old days" and be somewhat correct.
Idk, this post didn't really have a central theme or point, it was more just me rambling, but either way thank you for listening
It is as a sweet siren song calling sailors to their doom, I feel like Odysseus on his journey home to Ithaca, wishing to hear them calling to him, ordering his men to untie him so he may follow their music to his own demise, perhaps that is what my longing is. Therein lies the rub, loving the past to such a degree can make you hate yourself in the present.
I used to think my father was delusional when he would talk about how much better the 1950's-1970's was than my time, but now I understand exactly what he was talking about. I can't prove it but I know 2016 was a pivotal year that truly was the turning point in our society, and whatever it was that made those days so special gradually decreased until it was completely snuffed out before the new decade.
Maybe I just sound like a crabby old man going "you kids and your technology, back in my day...." but I feel like it really was better, as if Millennials and early to mid Gen Z were the last ones that can really claim "the good old days" and be somewhat correct.
Idk, this post didn't really have a central theme or point, it was more just me rambling, but either way thank you for listening
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