OK Boomer!
Everything Was Better In The Nineties.
That must be how some of Gen Z must have read my last couple of #NinetiesFriday posts.
π»πππππ π»π πΉπππππππ π»ππ 90π - Why Snowflake Generation Z hates 90s kids so much
And I get that!
Technically I am not a Boomer but I am getting to the age where there is more to look back on than to look forward to.
Old People
DonΒ΄t get me wrong I am happy where I am, and my prospects are still fine for the next 15 years I guess but I am definitely no longer a carefree teen, or charging at life full speed as I did back in my DJ days.
I mean when I see this, I go like ...huh ...Outkas an Old Song?
That song is 2003???
But I got really scared when I found this 2011 song in that list with so-called old songs:
I have to be honest and admit, YES I slowed down.
Responsible is a big word, but I got smart.
Where I, in my younger years I was living from paycheck to paycheck "Spend them if you Got Them", I now try to calculate how long I still have to work before I can quit.
Quiet Quitting
I had to work at some point.
I mean in the nineties I worked in a Coffeeshop which was one of the best jobs ever, but you donΒ΄t want to do that all your life.
Late Nineties I started as a DJ and kept that up till 2007 when I quit and moved to Spain. By that time I had a kid and and a future ex-wife.
I was able to quit at my peak, and when I came back to be the DJ at the Reunion Party I was still everybody's favorite.
Why?
Because of their Nostalgia.
I was the #1 DJ in their life when I left and that memory remains!
Even 10 years later that is how they feel when they see you, they remember the good times.
Most of the DJs in the club where I worked stayed on too long and became irrelevant and then that is the feeling people have when they see you ten years after.
The Mind is A Funny Place
The mind loves to mess with your head, it makes you forget pain so you are willing to get pregnant again.
It hides the traumas, till something triggers them.
And most of all itΒ΄s designed to keep you positive. It will color memories with vibrancy to make you think that Christmas when you were little was the ab fab.
While if you go back and look at yourself as a kid, like the Back To The Future feeling you will see that you were bored as the family was busy prepping stuff and you had to wait all day dressed up to open those presents and eat that weird food your mom cooked up and called Special.
Hence no I am not Nostalgic about Christmas past.
Am I Nostalgic About Anything?
Now I do not consider myself normal so this might not resonate with most of you, but even though I love to reminiscence about those wonderful days
Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or affection for the past, often tied to happy memories, places, people, or experiences.
Hence thinking back to the past does not count, you really need to be longing for it to come back. And that is where I fail I guess.
People in their 20s get their first taste of nostalgia but the shit really hits the brain after 40.
As life progresses things change, they grow older, and face new experiences and responsibilities.
Nostalgia allows people to reflect on simpler, carefree times. This often happens during significant life transitions like finishing school, starting a career, when children leave home, when a loved one passes away, or when the end comes significantly closer.
After reading up on Nostalgia I was like, do I do that?
I went like, No!
Then I told myself, maybe you are in denial!
Why is That?
I had great life events, and some less great ...probably more less great but my mind tries to hide those experiences from me.
But I, even at my age, do not find myself longing back to those times gone by.
I mean when I was a kid, I wanted to grow up. I was not carefree at all. My mom was single and had financial worries. At school, I often got into fights with kids bigger than me because I would not bow.
In high school I hated it, it was a waste of time.
I spent my time smoking weed, writing poems, getting kicked out of class, and finding ways to pay for my marihuana.
I moved out of the house at 18 to study, still having money issues and only partly enjoying the study I followed.
Yes I enjoyed working behind the bar in the Coffeeshop, but I would not want to go back.
I loved working in Da Club, especially on my DJ nights those nights indeed were some of the best in my life.
But there is no Nostalgia, no bittersweet longing for the past, rooted in specific memories that bring both joy and sadness because they are part of a bygone time.
Maybe, that is because my focus always was on the future and still is.
Maybe, that is because I always needed to keep myself afloat financially and often walked close to the abyss. I mean I was a DJ but there were times I did not have a roof over my head.
Sleeping at friends' places for months with no place to call your own.
Maybe, it was because I was not able to find that inner peace back then. Something I only now started to uncover.
Back then I was always worried about money, worried about losing my safe place, worried about not making it.
Back then I was looking for that next party, looking for that next girl, looking for that next shot of dopamine.
Moving to Spain did not make things better, at least not from the Nostalgia perspective I am not longing back to those days as well.
I did not know anyone went from DJ hero to knowing absolutely zero people. The years that followed were not easy either.
Although I loved living in the middle of nowhere off the grid and growing my own vegetables and strawberries, the financial struggles and all the stress that caused do not make me feel like I want to relive those days.
Do I have reversed Nostalgia?
Everyone is supposed to get nostalgic right? What am I, Superman?
If I do not long for the past, do I then long for the future like in "reversed nostalgia" a form of anticipatory nostalgia or preemptive nostalgia, where I yearn for future moments?
I think that comes closer already, although not quite. I do long for the future as I have been working my ass off to enable an early retirement. I am halfway to having the minimum amount a month needed to stop working.
I should reach that moment in about 4 years.
Does that make me long for the future?
Not really, I love the idea of having basic financial security but these are crazy times and even though I diversify it might all get screwed up.
Living in the now
I always looked toward the future as there are always things to do. That is why I never feel like I am living in the now.
Only now do I realize, that even though my focus is on anticipating future events I always enjoy the now. Every now, causing me not to be nostalgic about any previous now because I appreciate the now, and not knowing what is around the next corner.
After Thought
I am not nostalgic, I am not in denial, I donΒ΄t think itΒ΄s a dirty word I just do not really feel it. What I do feel sometimes is melancholy. Which is more a reflective sadness, while nostalgia is a mix of fondness and sadness centered around memories of the past.
And I tried, but if even a song about my favorite 90s show does not get me in a nostalgic mood..... I give up.
Thank goodness you made it till the end Pees, Love and I am out of here!
#NinetiesFriday was brought to you by
WTF do I do on #NinetiesFriday?
Well, don't do what I do because I just stole the below as it is good enough for copy/pasta!
But some ideas are music, movies, television, sports, or really anything Nineties related.
I assume movie, TV, or music topic reviews or talk will be most common, but you could also talk about a sports memory or something else.
Think the Pop Culture of the times, but it would be great to hear about little known and interesting bands or entertainment items. Donβt forget to use tag #NinetiesFriday
@geneeverett will give 3 basic income units to a winning random post every week that uses the #NinetiesFriday tag. Also @thebighigg has jumped in to match for 6 total weekly prizes! If anyone else wants to sponsor with 1 unit let me know or just send if you donβt wanna commit to weekly π
All images by MyI and AI