Longing, Nostalgia, Spiritual Connection?

[Zardnaar]

Somewhat weird topic for me. Its about ones feelings and the average NZ Gen X male won't admit to having any.

Anyway this is a place I lived when I was young. Age 2-4 roughly. I don't have any older memories.

It's a pretty part of the country sure but there plenty of other parts that are nicer. I was born about half an hour in another small town.

I don't regard it as my home town. Very young spent 17 odd years in my hometown.

Anyway there's a definite longing or connection there. Spent a bit if time in the area 1999-2001 visiting or working in the area. Very stark dry landscape. Hottest part of the country in summer, very close to the coldest part of the country in winter. Microclimate.

If I had to live in small town NZ again this place would be on my shortlist. Last there in January l. There's no one there I know anymore my godparents may still be there but I haven't seen them in 2 decades. Reality probably get bored after a few days but I love the area.

Comparison Mothers hometown arguably prettier, ocean, childhood memories of holidays, beaches, swimming in the Marlborough sounds but not even the same feeling.

Anyway nostalgia, something deeper, anywhere that makes you feel happy or sonething a bit deeper tgan "cool place".

 

[E.man]

I'm early gen x, which makes me old for a gen x. These are arbitrary labels. My parents were UK warbabies who grew up with rationing and bomb sites, not baby boomers post war.

But.. topic. 'Connection ' to land. Something of a spiritual thing. Unmeasurable. Some places we feel more quickly, others more over time. The subconscious needs quite some time to feel at home.

Some ppl don't seem to feel it beyond how much money they can make.

My historic heritage is perhaps Saxon. There is no provable connection but my interest is still drawn.

I was forced to be in Canberra by the Black summer fires. It's quite fine with lots of services, but I wouldn't mind returning to the Bega area where I just spent 20 years.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I can't go back to the place I'm nostalgic for. It no longer exists, having been bulldozed, paved, and changed from an acreage with seasonal wetlands and forest and some of the cleanest water I've ever had to light industrial with an obscene number of parking lots.

 

[Narz]

I grew up in suburbia (Westchester country, NY, about 40min north of NYC). I have zero nostalgia for it as I wasn't a particularly happy kid. I haven't been back anywhere near where I grew up in 24 years and I don't have any real desire to (maybe a slightly curiosity to walk around where I lived for 10 years but very slight and if I had the money/time to do so I'd rather travel somewhere I'd never been instead)

Would be cool to have a place where I can build up a home, connection to the land, community vibe, longest I've lived somewhere in my adult life is just under five years (mostly three months here, six months there, over a year a few times) so haven't really had that experience.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Its been a while since I last made the journey but catching the bus from Edinburgh to North Berwick where I spent my teenage years is very nostalgic for me, going through the little villages where my friends lived. You can't go back though. Last time I was there I visited my old watering hole and it was full of horrible little scroats and I was just like them once.

 

[Zardnaar]

Its been a while since I last made the journey but catching the bus from Edinburgh to North Berwick where I spent my teenage years is very nostalgic for me, going through the little villages where my friends lived. You can't go back though. Last time I was there I visited my old watering hole and it was full of horrible little scroats and I was just like them once.

I wasn't a big bar fly so don't care about old watering holes.

There's a bakery and fish and chip shop I'll hit up in my hometown.

 

[Gori the Grey]

From 8-18 lived in a particular city. If circumstances took me back near there, I would roam nostalgically around various locales. But I won't make any special effort to make that happen. My deepest nostalgia is not for that place but for a childhood activity: the time I spent RPGing with a small group of friends. If I ever come across a store that sells RPGs, I go in and it takes me back to those times. I recently learned that there's still a gaming magazine the publishes adventures for a long-defunct gaming system (Steve Jackson's precursor to GURPS: The Fantasy Trip). So I've started devising an adventure to send to that magazine. That would be a kick, if I got it published.

 

[Tee Kay]

Almost all the places I'm nostalgic for are also places associated with trauma, so it's complicated.

I'm actually living in one of those places. I went to school in the area for a time, then moved to the area very briefly in my early 20s, and moved back a couple of years ago. Complicated feelings about it, still.

The one place I'm uncomplicatedly nostalgic for, because they were all good memories, I haven't actually been back 'cause it's a pain to get to.

 

[Narz]

From 8-18 lived in a particular city. If circumstances took me back near there, I would roam nostalgically around various locales. But I won't make any special effort to make that happen. My deepest nostalgia is not for that place but for a childhood activity: the time I spent RPGing with a small group of friends. If I ever come across a store that sells RPGs, I go in and it takes me back to those times. I recently learned that there's still a gaming magazine the publishes adventures for a long-defunct gaming system (Steve Jackson's precursor to GURPS: The Fantasy Trip). So I've started devising an adventure to send to that magazine. That would be a kick, if I got it published.

Yeah I worked at a game store for awhile, miss that spot but it doesn't exist anymore.

Cities and towns never stay the same, you can never step in the same river twice and all that

 

[danjuno]

As a kid who spent a lot of time on the internet growing up in the 2000s, my nostalgia is mainly for the wild west feel when it wasn't dominated by five sites posting screenshots of the other four. In terms of the physical world, I lived out in Arizona in my teens, but beyond the usual tourist traps there I have no desire to return, and have since moved back to the area I grew up in, so I can visit old places anytime.

 

[dusters]

I kinda sympathize with Valka here. My hometown in late 1980s was rather lively. Called Liepaja, it is 3rd biggest city in Latvia. It had population of 85k back then, now it has like 60k.

Back in USSR it was very busy, with ships going to other countries, with great beach and other luxuries. When USSR collapsed in early 1990s, this town got poorer, because docks were not working that much anymore. It had railroad to Lithuania and maybe even to Germany.

In late 1980s Latvia was 30% or more forest. In 2000s forest had been cut off in a lot of places. Liepaja is a city with much less identity now and with so many empty houses as if it was a ghost town.

 

[Zardnaar]

My hometown has gone from 12k 2006 to under 14k.

Been priced out of my birthplace the town I like in opening thread selling up we could probably live there but the difference would be 120-150k usd.

 

[Zardnaar]

My hometown has gone from 12k 2006 to under 14k.

Been priced out of my birthplace the town I like in opening thread selling up we could probably live there but the difference would be 120-150k usd. Central Otago most expensive real estate in the country closer you get to Queenstown or Wanaka.

Think they're both beating Auckland.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

As a kid who spent a lot of time on the internet growing up in the 2000s, my nostalgia is mainly for the wild west feel when it wasn't dominated by five sites posting screenshots of the other four.

I too miss those early days of the internet. From the janky MMO's to the million and one random internet forums and websites that were done using Flash and tables. And without the constant tracking, spying and with very little moderation or control. A time where anonymity and creativity were king and the internet was a new frontier for people to expand into as opposed to just another faced of human activity to monetize.

And it's not just the internet really. I miss the good old days of the 90's and 2000's in general. A time when mobile phones were rare, the internet was slow and life was just so much less rushed. A time when video games were made by nerds for nerds, Star Wars was still good and the whole world was sane.

God, what I wouldn't give to go back to that time for just one day.

 

[Angst]

i have nowhere to be nostalgic to lol. the place i grew up sucked

i have sentimentality for some of the people and some memories in my youth. mostly i miss not feeling like i have a block of wood through my brain

 

[Narz]

the whole world was sane

There were insane pockets, north Koreans were starving for instance and the situation is Kosavo but yeah culturally it was better, less isolated and polarized (altho that was already creeping in)

Real life interactions seem to have become too much for most people now and it's a vicious cycle, the more people on their phones, not socializing irl, the more boring communities become, the more people retreat into their lil customized online world.

Even when I think of 90s suburban culture, kids hanging out in a parking lot buying sodas and skating it already feels a bit depressing tbh but at least they were with each other.

I'd like to get to the point in my life where I spend like 5 hours a week (or less) total on my phone and laptop but my life does not rich enough for that rn

 

[Narz]

i have nowhere to be nostalgic to lol. the place i grew up sucked

i have sentimentality for some of the people and some memories in my youth. mostly i miss not feeling like i have a block of wood through my brain

A block of wood like you couldn't think straight or couldn't connect/communicate w those around you?

 

[Angst]

A block of wood like you couldn't think straight or couldn't connect/communicate w those around you?

hard to articulate. i've described it as a pillow of noise, a beam, a block of wood. basically constantly feeling pressure in the frontal lobe. have had it for 10 years.