Learning 'bout letting go
Reflections on 'micro-nostalgia' and seafood extender
“Bit dusty. Very tired at work. Lunch with Kev ft. ‘seafood extender.’ Training, followed by dinner at the pub.”
I don’t recall the slight hangover but can’t forget Kev’s boldness in ordering Subway’s seafood filling. I’d remember it even without the above entry in my Hobonichi Techo 5-year Life Book; a reflective diary that has 365 pages, each with slots for five years’ worth of reflection.
While the January 9th 2025 reflection is unremarkable (although “extender” has absolutely become part of our piss-take vernacular), that the documentation exists at all is indicative of my tendency to engage in a phenomenon that Lydia Keating has dubbed “micro-nostalgia.”
While this time of year lends itself to reflection (see: ins and outs, resolutions and start, stop, keeps), Lydia suggests we are taking it all a bit far with an excessive desire to document the in-between moments of life.
“We are perpetually nostalgic,” she says, because of the fact we are chronically documenting the mundane.
“We used to only take photos at major life events; graduations, weddings and birthdays, but now we are photographing literally the eggs we made for breakfast, or a random run we went on.”
…Or remembering the seafood extender.
Although I could claim some holier than thou position and argue that writing the day’s events in a Japanese journal makes things different to snapping flicks on a phone, the fact I own the book at all came from a relentless obsession with documenting where I was and what I was up to.
A habit formed during COVID lockdown, recalling my activities from a week or a month ago helped to mark the otherwise blurred and indiscriminate passing of time. Had I been on a bike ride in the rain? Did mum and I finish the puzzle page in the paper? Had Geelong played a game?
As we came out the other side, the habit stuck and my housemate Matthew got sick of my loud proclamations that a week ago we had a table tennis competition, or that it had been a fortnight since the backyard BBQ.
He generously bought us both the journal, and I cherish it as a way to remember – and no longer pester him (as much) with my pesky, overly reflective thoughts.
However, Lydia contends that the continued presence of micro-nostalgia, indeed nostalgia at all, is unhealthy. She goes on to describe it as a form of “self-manipulation,” because it just leaves us to enjoy the memory of an event, without the anxiety experienced while we lived that memory.
This is not to say there was an overwhelming sense of apprehension when Kev placed his order, though maybe there should have been. What it does suggest, however, is that the practice of replacing lived experience with a range of cushy, comfy and largely irrelevant memories might not be the best idea.
That the constant inward remembrance of an order placed, a game played or a meeting attended doesn’t actually add value and instead takes up brain space that ought to be dedicated to an outward focus on and care for others. On creativity. On curiosity.
It’s not all our fault, of course. Where Lydia refers to the random run, the tech bros at Strava clued on to that, and now clog our feeds with our own activity from that day in years past.
Facebook loves to share memories that are almost always best forgotten, and the Apple Photos App has taken to creating showreels from its own terrifyingly accurate curated albums.
As for wrestling with that tension, then?
Lydia concludes by sharing Sarah Manguso’s moving quote from Ongoingness, that “forgotten moments are the price of continued participation in life.”
That we can only find presence and purpose by letting these memories fade.
She might be right, it’s probably what the self-help books say, too. But for me there is also purpose to be found in remembering; in sharing the silly memories with those who were there, or a quiet moment with myself.
Not to elevate, not to justify, just to know that they happened.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Alex Pope said nothing about seafood extenders, sadly.