The urge to feed nostalgia. Is this different from nostalgia itself? Impulse versus aftermath. A temptation, but devoid of ecstasy. The impulse tells us we might live again—an uncanny resemblance—and if we live again, will it really be us there, or will we skulk along the periphery with half-clenched fists? Like a voyeur in the mirror. A narcissist, but no one looks back. They look continually past—past doubt, past what-if, past the day you left, left them bereft, on the brink, slightly bemused. We can see us there—we know what we’d like to think. But from where to think it? The arc of nostalgia never begins in an emotional present. We catch it en route, already worn down to the metal and glistening. Therein lies a brute navigation.
Lean and mean, our fathers said, without a referent.
