nostalgia

Sometimes I am prone to bouts of nostalgia...
Nostalgia is interesting stuff. On the surface it seems like a nice, fuzzy, happy concept, but look deeper and you'll find that it has a darker underbelly. If you give in to it, it can consume you and block out much of what you are experiencing right now. Is it possible to live in a permanent state of nostalgia, only seeing the good in what has been? A thesaurus will tell you that the following are synonyms: homesickness, wistfulness, longing and melancholy which are right on the money. The really interesting thing is that while nostalgia can make you feel good, it is not a positive feeling in itself - it evokes a melancholic longing for perceived happiness from the past. Perhaps you could say that nostalgia is actually an inability to enjoy the moment, substituting a false sense of quasi-happiness from the past filtered through the distorting lens of memory.

Tellingly, the word nostalgia is derived from the greek nostos (homecoming) and algos (pain, grief or distress).