When the Future Feels Fragile, We Turn to the Past
When the world shakes, we look back.
The news gets worse. The rules shift. Things speed up. We feel out of place in our own time. So we turn to the old things. Music we know. Games we played. Food that tastes like home.
It is not weakness. It is not hiding. It is survival.
We have done it before.
After the war, Britain held tight to routine. Tea. Radio. A Sunday roast. The streets were broken but the old ways made sense.
In the seventies, with oil crises and crooked men in charge, America and the UK dressed like it was the fifties. Happy Days, diners, slicked hair. A time that felt cleaner, even if it never really was.
When the Soviet Union fell, everything changed. But many still sang the same songs and cooked the same meals. The new world was loud. The old one, at least, had rhythm.
After 9/11, people craved comfort. Superheroes. Sitcoms. Vinyl records. The Office. Friends. Things that said it would be alright, even if just for 22 minutes.
And then came the lockdown.
We baked. We planted. We played games with talking animals. We watched old films. Listened to music from when we still believed things would work out.
That was not just nostalgia. That was medicine.
Lately, I have felt it myself. The pull backwards. I started buying physical media again. Games on disc. Albums I can hold. Books that smell like time. I set up my old consoles. I have even devoted a whole desk to a new hobby. I will write more about that soon.
Not because these things are better. But because they slow the world down.
I missed some of them in my youth. Rushed past them. Wanted the next thing. Now I look at these old objects and realise they were waiting. They never asked for much. Just to be used, enjoyed, remembered.
The past does not fix the present. But it gives us a place to breathe. A map when the lights go out.
If you have been feeling that pull, do not fight it. It means you are still here. Still human. Still trying to stay upright while the world spins.
That is enough