Armchair Neuroscience: You & Nostalgia

“What are we?”

Scientists and philosophers alike have long debated what we, people, actually are. Physically & mentally. Physically, 30% of “people” by weight are not really “people” at all — it’s a collection of bacteria, viruses, and parasites. It’s also nearly certain that every cell/atom in your body has already been replaced several times over during your lifespan. It’s more unsettling the more you dig into it.

A big part of that replacement process of old cells is through adding new ones, which are a product of what you eat. So you really are what you eat, or at least for a little bit. That Uncle Chen’s you had this weekend won’t be who you are forever, don’t worry, but it will be the makeup of who you are physically for a few months, at least in some form.

It’s kind of funny to think and reflect about that for a moment.

Okay, but Mitch, isn’t it about what’s on the inside?

Sure, let’s go with that. Are we a collection of our actions? Habits? Thoughts?

Is the question “who are we” a little more straightforward than we make it out to be? There’s a lot of questions to be asked here, and a lot of speculation that is going around on this topic (and has been for centuries). Take this insightful quote from Gandhi, for example:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, and your values become your destiny.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

So, are our identities enslaved to our diet and thoughts? Perhaps more than we like to think. But both what we eat and what we think change over the course of our lifetime. Are we truly different people at one point of time to another?

For some people, perhaps. I think everyone has a case or two that comes to mind in their own life.

Beliefs and education are also often a product of the experiences that we have — and the same can be said for one’s dietary choices too.

So it’s time to ask the question again: are we a collection of our own experiences?

Scientists have been coming to a similar, but still very loose, conclusion too. The funny thing about experiences (and therefore history) is that it’s open to interpretation and selective memory.

If you’ve been feeling a little anxious even reading about this topic then that’s good. It’s a natural feeling to have when we have to think about ourselves in existential way.

It’s uncomfortable — and it’s why scientists believe that our body has created a response over time — called nostalgia — a feeling that helps us feel comfort about thinking of the past. It can often create a sense of longing to go back to a time or place, so that we can reaffirm to ourselves that is who we are. It’s a tool to help better string together our collection of memories.

The memories of that first date you took to a high school dance, that amazing trip you took overseas, even that first weekend at Penn State is thought to be the primary way you keep track of who you are. Those memories are selected, gilded, and called upon for a reason. It seems to be at the very core of who you are.

Nostalgia is the feeling to help you keep that in check. Your healthy reminder to yourself of who you are.

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia.”

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”

“[Nostolgia] brings to mind cherished experiences that assure us we are valued people who have meaningful lives.”

It’s an idea that I’ve been playing around (and admittedly, struggled) with for the past few months.

In dating, it often takes a long time until you’re able to be happy about a relationship for what it was and not think about it in a sulking, negative way. It takes time to develop that perspective and weed out the way that experience shaped you — the gilded parts that you’ll remember much later on. Depending on how it ended, that process could accelerate but the idea is still the same. You’ll pick out the experiences that shaped you and call upon those to reiterate to yourself: that’s who I am.

I recently got back from Iceland with a group of 40 other 20-something-year-olds from around the world. I’m dying to go back and relive that experience. Go back to Iceland and do it again. It’s because 1. that experience deeply changed some of my beliefs, and 2. I met a lot of people that I long to be with again.

“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

– The Great Gatsby

I think that’s the difficult part about Nostalgia: balancing the respect and acknowledgement for what a memory is.

It’s hard to only use it for happiness and strengthening of one’s self-identity, when it often leaves a feeling for wanting more. It leaves us a deep desire to go out and recreate those feelings and memories, often in a reckless way.

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