On Fri, 15 May 2009 18:07:43 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Hmm. Interestingly I read something recently that stated that the
> problem many "older people" have with new things involves nostalgia.
> They see/hear things that remind them of how they felt "before", and as
> a result, depending on those feelings, they may avoid them, or seek them
> out, and in the process, ignore everything else from the same time
> period. 

In my own case, there were certainly happy times, but they largely did 
not involve hanging out with kids my own age (I can think of maybe 3 or 4 
kids I would hang out with regularly during that time period).

But sure, visual/auditory and even olfactory sensations can bring back 
bad memories.  I can't listen to The Beatles at all because of the 
memories it triggers (hell, just talking about it brings the memories 
flooding back).

> We can choose to see reality, or to see the past as a great place where
> nice things happened to us, or to see it as one where bad things did. In
> the end, both of the later are purely self delusion, and prevent you
> living in the current time, without your perspective of the past one
> undermining the truth of what is happening "now". Both live in the past,
> and can't see either the problems, or the progress, that exists "now".

It sounds like this article was full of pop-psychology nonsense to me.  
Dismissing past experiences is denying the things that make you who you 
are and prevent you from learning from past mistakes.  It is human nature 
to want to avoid things that remind us of painful times and events.  It's 
a self-preservation mechanism.

Jim

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