A barrier to living life

Nostalgia and anger, two emotions born from morbid dissatisfaction with the way things are, both bringing with them their own unique dangers.

At the level of the individual, nostalgia's grip spells far more danger than that of anger. Anger burns hot and fast, it drives bad decisions and sows seeds that give rise to eventual regret. It motivates irrational behavior, it brings out a dark side of us, it leads to conflicts to fights to battles to war.

Nostalgia is an insidious danger dressed in a bittersweet facade. It infects the present with an unshakable desire for an unattainable past, it glorifies what was at the expense of what is. Existing becomes dissatisfying and the mind becomes trapped in a beautiful past that never really happened. Maintaining old memories grows more important than creating new ones, and an unshakable sorrow takes residence in the heart.

The dangers of anger are undeniable, but anger is a visible danger, a more tangible threat, while nostalgia hides in the shadows and whispers misery and heartache. Anger is blatant and obvious, while nostalgia is nuanced and pernicious. Anger is aggressive, but nostalgia can be sweet at first; the process of revisiting the positive parts of one's past can be a pleasantly melancholic endeavor, but the danger arises when nostalgia clings, when memories grow strong and unrelenting. The heart yearns for something impossible, a return to the way that things were, only things never really were that way—nostalgia is not a faithful artist, her works are biased and deceptive.

Anger can motivate powerful and necessary change. Righteous anger is the tool of improvement; dissatisfaction with the way that things are is essential for bringing a better world into existence. Nostalgia is quicksand, nostalgia is a spider's web. Rather than serving as a catalyst for change, nostalgia hinders improvement by entrapping the mind in a state of yearning for the past. As far as the human experience goes, time flows in one direction, and nostalgia is the dream of sailing up a waterfall—it cannot be done.

In short, nostalgia interferes with the ability to live life.