Let's start with that word: nostalgia. I've seen people disregard the word and saying that people shouldn't focus on it, and instead should focus on moving pasulong in life. Plus, it can affect on how we view things in real life and the media, clouding us with memories of the past that prevents us from maturing.
I respectfully disagree. You see, nostalgia to me at least, is a powerful thing. Sure, it can affect how we view things in life, but that's why I like it so much. It makes us look back at our old memories, and how we and the things around us changed. Not to mention, it's the closest we get to reliving these moments in our lives, that are responsible in shaping who we are now. Others may try to recreate those moments, but it wouldn't be the same, and instead it feels like a cheap imitation.
For instance, let's talk about three instances where I tried to recreate memorable moments from my life.
First, it was March 10th of 2017, I tried to recreate a moment from my 8th grade that meant a lot to me.
It was a Friday night in October of 2014. At school, we went to the city statue that's dedicated to all of the soldiers that lived in this town but died during both World Wars. Because my laptop had a virus for months, my father brought it to a friend of ours to remove and fix it. As a result, I was forced to use my mother's old computer. While doing my homework for English, I was listening to the end credits song of The Big O. This was during the time when I had a massive crush on Elsa from Frozen, and I wanted to a malancholic but lovely song to fit the mood. Whenever someone came in, I rushed to the computer and paused the video. When my mother came to the computer to check both of our Facebook pages, she saw the picture that was taken of my former classmates, and the comments about. Including a comment sa pamamagitan ng one of my most hated classmates during that time, a tall but slim guy sa pamamagitan ng the name of Sebastian. He boasted about being the tallest in the class. My mother wanted to reply back to him, and say that I'm stronger than him. I didn't want to do it, but she insisted, and I went through with it. After she left, and I finished my homework, I had the computer all to myself. There was a chair in front of the computer, but it was stacked with bags of clothing and I couldn't sit on it, so instead I sat on the kama and leaning to the side. During that night, I did dozens of quizzes, not just about Frozen, but about Disney, what spirit animal I have, what kind of mental problems I have, colors, and quizzes from Oh Disney! I remember doing a iksamen there, the invoked locations from various Disney movies. I also surfed around DeviantArt that night, and saw fan-arts of nagyelo x Kingdom Hearts, as well as some beautiful fan-arts of Elsa and Anna.
It may not seem much to you, but it was a moment that I highly remember, and one that I don't want to forget.
As a result, on March 10th of this year, I tried to recreate that moment, with almost every detail. Even doing my English homework the exact same way. However, it wasn't the same. The upside was that I watched a video that talked about facts about Samurai Jack that I never knew. You see, it was the araw before the long-awaited Season 5 aired, and so they made a trivia video about it as a way to celebrate it. It saddened me that it wasn't the same, but I still enjoyed it because it was a little different. After only being there for a few hours, I put everything back in its place, like nothing happened.
Another example, is back in Summer of 2016 and September of 2017, when I went on a two oras long walk. I went back to the school I went to during the segundo semester of my 8th grade. You see, back in my 8th grade, I failed computers class, not because I barely knew anything, but because our teacher was a douchebag. As a result, I almost ended up failing, had it not been for my mother signing me into a different school in Paulis. I had to get up earlier in the morning than I was used to, because classes start at 8:A.M. there, as oppose to my school that starts at 9:A.M. Plus, I had to go with the bus.
My new school was better, but only sa pamamagitan ng a hair, because my new classmates were just as insufferable as the old ones. However, the thing I enjoyed the most during that segundo semester is when they let us go tahanan sooner. You see, because we need a bus to go tahanan with, I had to walk all the way home, but I didn't mind it one bit. Walking is one of my paborito hobbies, because it allows me to explore the outside world and get some fresh air. Plus, it's good exercise.
The first time that happened was on a rather rainy afternoon. They didn't want me to go tahanan sa pamamagitan ng hymself, but I insisted to go home. I memorized where I'm supposed to go, and I got tahanan within an hour. On my way, I was pondering about the then upcoming Disney movie, Zootopia.
Another one I remember was on a Sunny Friday afternoon. The night before it, I was studying until 11:P.M. because we were having a test. But we didn't do the test and they let us go tahanan sooner. I was disappointed and sad because I was studying for hours as to not fail, and it was for nothing. Still, at least the weather was pleasant.
And another one was the last araw of my 8th grade. It was a rainy afternoon, but I didn't care because I was happy that I finally finished middle school.
I bring these up because I whenever I came tahanan on foot from that school, I enjoyed every moment of it, and I wanted to recreate it.
Once in July of 2016. It was warm and sunny, to the point where I had to remove my shirt. It felt great revisiting it for old times sake.
A madami kamakailan one happened on my pen-ultimate araw of my Summer Vacation of 2017. Because it was the pen-ultimate, I wanted to make it special, and revisited the school again. Now, I didn't go into the school, or even the yard because it was closed. I went to the park that's right in front of the school, and looked at it from there.
The following one is a madami kamakailan event. Back in early November, on a Friday afternoon, I went to my hair dresser in Minis to get a haircut. Instead of the usual route that I take, I instead took the route that I went to, back in November of 8th grade. It was a Sunny Saturday morning. After I had breakfast, I dressed up, and went to my hairdresser on the same path. The sun was shining while the air was full of leftover rain pours from the nakaraan day, and I was listening to the most kamakailan song I took a liking to at the time "If Everyone Cared" sa pamamagitan ng Nickleback. I discovered a Disney AMV the night before it, that had this song in it, and it became my paborito song from the bad. I downloaded the song and I listened to it while on my way. And when I arrived, I waited for my turn, while playing the piano mini-game from Talking Tom.
The reason why I went on that same path is because I wanted to recreate that same feeling, but it wasn't the same. Instead of being sunny, the sky was dull and white, and it just boring and rather unremarkable.
While these instances didn't make me feel like the ones from my 8th grade days, I did fell very nostalgic, as it reminded of all the memories I had with that school.
I know what you people are going to say: "Wow! You must be some sort of loser who lives in the past and refuses to ilipat forward."
While I agree that letting our past to consume us is a bad thing, what I meant to say is that it's nice remembering and honoring these moments of our past because they're responsible for making us who we are. They helped us form a new identity, or a sense of purpose in life that we can follow.
I tried to recreate these moments because they do mean a lot to me, while also trying to ilipat pasulong and become a better artist. I won't allow my past to control me. Not to mention, sa pamamagitan ng living in the past, it will prevent the making of new memories, that I'm going feel nostalgic about.
However, there are others who do let their past consume them,and refuse to ilipat forward. Let's talk about one of the most tragic, and one of my paborito villains of all time: Nox from Wakfu.
Before we start, let's talk about Wakfu. Wakfu is a French action-adventure animated series, created sa pamamagitan ng Ankama studios, and it's based on the MMORPG of the same name. It's quite possibly the most popular French cartoon series I know of. It spawned many merchandise, a large fanbase, a spin-off show, 6 OVA's, an interesting lore, and it's third season concluded two weeks ago, and it even has two madami seasons greenlit.
I got introduced to Wakfu in June of this year, when my best friend talked a lot about it, and even shared the link to the first episode. I watched the English Dub, and it was really mediocre, but the dub slowly grew on me.
The series itself is actually pretty good, it's only problem being that it doesn't have the same depth and character development like awatara The Last Airbender or Legend of Korra. But there are two things that this series excels at the most, and that's: the animation and creating some fantastic main villains. Out of all of the main villains, Nox, the villain of the first season is my favorite, and I'll explain why.
The reason why I'm talking about Nox is because he's someone who lived in his past, and refused to ilipat forward, and it resulted in the loss of his humanity, and then his life.
Before his descent into madness, Noximillien was a very intelligent clock maker and horologist, as well as a loving husband and father. One day, when he showed off his latest invention to his family, his dog Igole ran away into cave. When Noximillien found Igole, we was barking at a strange cube known as the Eliacube (Basically, it's the MacGuffin item of the whole show.). After it shocked Igole, Noximillien became fascinated with it, and began to study it for days on end, to the point of ignoring his family all together. It got to the point of almost corrupting him, as well as granting him the ability to teleport. When his wife and children left him, he wanted to sumali them, but was called back sa pamamagitan ng the cube to work madami on it. Eventually, his landlord came to his house. Noximillien, now looking incredibly skinny, hands his landlord the money, but that's not what he came for. He came to inform Noximillien about the death of his family, as they were swallowed sa pamamagitan ng the sea and drowned. Due to the loss of his family, Noximillien was driven mad. However, he had an idea. He studied the cube for a while and realized that it feeds off of Wakfu (The life-force of the world). He will spend the rest of his life to collect all of the world's Wakfu in order to feed it to the Eliacube, so he can then use its power to turn back time and be with his family again. From that point on, Noximillien became Nox, and spent the susunod 200 years draining all of the world's Wakfu with the help of his inventions. He turned his body into that of a mummified cyborg that also feeds off of Wakfu, and not have any resemblance to his former human self.
In the end, when he tries to use the remaining Wakfu he gave to the Eliacube in order to turn back time, the cube only turns back time for 20 minutes, making all of the effort he put into collecting the world's Wakfu, meaningless. He breaks down crying, as all of his hopes of seeing his family again are crushed. Nox uses the last of his energy to blink to his family's grave. There time finally caught up to him and in an instant his body decayed to mere ash. There stood 4 grave stones, three children, one adult. Forever that mask would lay with the entombed family marking the passing of the Nox, a father finally returned home.
I bring up Nox because he perfectly represents one of Wakfu's main themes: that time is precious and you shouldn't waste it. Nox refused to accept the fact that his family is gone forever and that he can't bring them back. He blames himself for their deaths, and so he takes it upon himself to turn back time, erase all of the horrible things he did, and reunite with his family. But because he refused to accept it and ilipat forward, that's what ultimately caused his downfall.
Another reason why I bring him up is because of the idea of turning back time and relive the moments from your past. It's kind of like rewinding the tape to watch and awesome scene from the movie you're watching. However, you can't turn back time and relive those moments. It's a once in a lifetime moment that you can never experience again, because life isn't a movie that you can rewind. Sometimes, I also wish to turn back time and re-experience these memorable and nostalgic moments again, but unlike Nox, I do want to ilipat pasulong in life. It's just that I remember these moments so damn well that I want to re-experience them again. I want to relive the same feelings I felt back in the day! The nostalgia is so strong that it's killing me! It's not my fault that I have a good memory...
But as I sinabi I have to face the facts that Nox didn't, that you can't turn back time and relive these moments again. And even if you did, it wouldn't be the same, because you already know what's going to happen, and thus it takes away from what made it so special in the first place.
Another thing that kills me when it comes to nostalgia is the new nagyelo short: Olaf's nagyelo Adventure. I remember back when nagyelo Fever was just being mentioned on IMDB, with no pictures whatsoever. Then the promotional pictures were released, then the screenshots, then the trailer, the song and then the actual short itself. I remember being afraid that until March 14th, my pag-ibig for nagyelo is going to die down...but it didn't. And now a new nagyelo short is released, and it reminded me a lot of Fever. I even tweeted on one of Idina Menzel's posts about how the nostalgia is killing me.
Speaking of Nostalgia, 2013 and 2016 were milestone years for many beloved, pop-culture franchises. In 2013: Doctor Who celebrated its 50 anniversary; James Bond (The novels, anyway) celebrated its 60th birthday; and Power Rangers celebrated its 20th birthday. In 2016: Pokemon celebrated its 20th birthday; Sonic The Hedgehog celebrated its 25th birthday; and The legend of Zelda celebrated its 30th birthday.
These kind of pop-culture milestones should not be shrugged off. Pop-culture is a glut of material: memes; shows; movies; songs; celebrities; jokes; language; politics; news; events; etc. A single taon can alter the landscape of what people are talking about, what they're watching or listening to, what they feel nostalgic for. The idea that something will be talked about for not just one year, but several years after it's initial creation is pretty impressive.
What I'm talking about, is that as the years go bye, we grow old, but even when we're old, we still remember and feel nostalgic for all the memories we had with these things. Even if they might seem insignificant, they do mean a lot to us because they helped us form who we are now, and thus we pay tributes to it. nagyelo has changed my life on so many levels, that there's no way that I'm not honoring it. Whether it be the first araw I became a tagahanga of it, the birthdays of Elsa and Anna, the anniversary of when a certain thing related to it was released, what happened during those times, etc. I pay homage to these sort of things because they helped me create who I am know, not to mention, they're still fresh in my minds, like I experienced it just last week. However, there's another reason behind it...
In the past, I mentioned that I have mental issues and problems with my emotions. This makes me worry that when I get old, I'll get Altzheimers and forget who I am, the people around me, the things I did in the past, etc. One of my biggest fears is forgetting these important moments. I write them down in great detail as a way to memorize almost all it, either through a comment or in one of my articles. Sure, there are sites like Penzu that I can use to write down what happened during the day, but the thing is that I'm very busy and I don't have time to do it.
They're still in my mind after all these years, so that counts for something. On the segundo Sunday of my new school year, I told my father of an incident with the traktor that happened literally three years ago, but sadly he can't recall.
If I were to have a superpower, it would be to have the most perfect photographic memory in the world, as to never forget a single thing in my life. Not only do I think that it's a very practical and useful power to have, but it's also very useful for personal reasons, because it wouldn't matter how old I get, I won't forget a thing.
You want to know why I'm a Catholic? It's not just because I believe there's a God, but because I'm afraid of the idea of reincarnation. Yes, my conscience lives on, but with none of the same memories of who I was, or what I did, who I met, etc. However, it can also work because if I'm transported to Heaven or Hell, because my soul is eternal, and if my soul exist for all eternity, then I'd forget everything I ever experienced, over and over again. Who knows? Maybe there's a miracle that can allow me to remember everything when I'm in Heaven, but I'm not here to discuss religion.
For the past weeks, I received notifications from madami kamakailan Fanpop members, who were only members for the past buwan or so. They remind me of myself when I was just a beginner back in 2014, and how I became fans of people who were here since 2011 and such, and now I'm one one of those veteran Fanpop users that rookies want to be a tagahanga of.
You might think that sa pamamagitan ng remembering the past so fondly means that I don't want to ilipat forward, and that's not true. Because I do look pasulong to what changes the future brings, or how I or everyone will change in the future. Even if the future isn't the brightest, we humans are adaptable creatures. Not all changes that the future brings will be good, but that's precisely why I'm looking pasulong to it. Everybody goes through changes in life as we're all getting older as some of you are in your 20's or 30's, and are still learning about how life works when it comes to settling down, going through college, getting jobs, paying bills, raising children and other things adults have to deal with. Sometimes, I wish things were like how they were 2 or 3 years nakaraan and how interesting they were. Nowadays, it just feels empty. Even though I used to, and still kind do suffer from depression and anxiety, things were filled with so much madami life than nowadays. That's not to say that things aren't interesting now, but most of the time, it lacks what made the nakaraan years so good that I remember them to this day. There are a lot of things going on nowadays that are special and memorable in their own way. Heck, today I went to Minis to have a three oras class with my former extra curriculum English teacher because of the semester final exam in English. On my way home, it was raining and it was very muddy, and it reminded me of a similar experience back in Spring of my 7th grade, where the same thing happened.
As I said, I am still looking pasulong to what kind of changes the future holds. In an older artikulo of mine, I asked why is change is a good thing in the first place, especially when it's either not necessary and causes madami problems, or they're so nonsensical they make you wonder what was going through in their heads when they decided to go through with it. I was referring to changes towards a story, product, place, etc; not to people, because times change and we have to change with it. Not all of the time, because I really hate how PC the world has become, because if this keeps up we'll end up in the nightmarish world of Demolition Man.
The phrase "Time flies sa pamamagitan ng so fast" holds a lot of truth. While yes, a few years can seem like a long time, we don't really see it until it's already gone. We continue to distract ourselves with activities, hobbies, jobs, family, friends, etc, and suddenly it's the new year.
I remember back in January of 2016 how my father didn't like my mullet. For laughs, I told him that it's to homage to the glorious years of the 80's, and he sinabi "A hairstyle from the 80's shouldn't really exist in 2016." I felt weird at the time because it was only a buwan into the new taon and I hadn't gotten used to it yet, but I lived to cope with it. Now, we're only one buwan away from 2018, making us feel older and older as our life flies sa pamamagitan ng without us even noticing it.
Not only that, but these moments were so interesting and exciting to us that we want to relive them, but we can't. That's one of the reasons why memories exist. Sure, memories also serve the purpose to help us remind ourselves who are, what we're doing, why we're doing it, and how we're doing it. But I also believe they serve the purpose to see the moments in our past as to not forget these moments that we enjoyed so much, and mga litrato and objects about that period also help us remember.
It's always nice to remember the old days, but we shouldn't forget to ilipat pasulong and change. I went from a young and imaginative child, to a depressed and lonely teenager, to a mature and passionate artist, and I'm patient to see what the future will hold.
One of my paborito animes of all time, the Big O, has many themes, but the one that stands out to me the most is that memories are very precious to us, but we're adaptable beings that can survive even if we don't remember who are. Sure, the memories play a big part in our identity, but it's because of us and the circumstances we had at the time that make those moments from the past so meaningful.
In conclusion, I think of the past as an old friend that I revisit from time to time, and the bad memories as that strict coach who always yelled at you because it wanted to motivate you in becoming a madami mature person, and I look at future as an adversary I'll eventually have to face.
As always, Smell ya' Later!
