My Enjoyment From Engagement With Media Deepens As I Grow Older

I am not yet done thinking about nostalgia. In Nostalgia Always Includes a Temporal Context, I claim that we can never fully relive a nostalgic moment from the past precisely because of its temporal context—the past. In this article, I claim that my enjoyment from engaging with media, that in ten or twenty years yields the juicy fruits of nostalgia, deepens as I grow older. This idea can work as a remedy for an acute case of midlife crisis or nostalgic depression. The problem with my nostalgia for games from yesteryear is that it can sometimes be asphyxiating up to the point that I think I won’t enjoy anything else. Even worse, if I do decide to replay said game, because of the shift in temporal context, I can’t recreate the same moment and will feel disappointed. You shouldn’t try to “restore” that nostalgic moment: instead, you should “reflect” on it and enjoy your happy moments. Engagement with new material might result in more disappointments precisely because of that obsession…