Nostalgia, wanderlust, and transcendentalism

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6 Comments

Here are some definitions so we are all on the same page

nostalgia: "describes a longing for the past, often in idealized form. The word is used to refer to "the pain a sick person feels because he wishes to return to his native home, and fears never to see it again"

wanderlust: "Wanderlust is a loanword from German to English that designates a strong desire for or impulse to wander, or, in modern usage, to travel and to explore the world"

and [i think] transcendentalism is a bit more complicated to define.

I feel like that if i were to start going(that's the wanderlust part), i don't care where to (it's the journey that counts), i would find myself and develop a sense of my [nation's, culture's] past and thus finding meaning (the nostalgia-ish peice) to a part of who i am/my identity as an american.

I don't think i have much i can connect to in our country's history, and being locked up in new england (where the transcendentalist movement was huge, which i really admire - especially the idea of self-reliance) for most of my life not really exposed to the rest of america - what i'm getting at is that, well, life seems a little bland with out having something to feel a nostalgia towards. and the trandscendentalism thing is just too thin to be something all nostalgic about, the _only_ thing i really really liked from them was the concept about self-reliance. I like to think of my self as a loner.

My big questions are:
Do others [americans] feel that they have a lack of nostalgia towards things? is it normal to be nostalgic and wanderlust-ful about things?

Do ya'll understand what i am saying, or am i making no sense at all?

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Based on 51 votes (35 yes)
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Comments ( 6 )
  • reducto
    15 years ago

    omg you are just like myself. I'm a loner and I love transcendentalism. i live in new england.i isolate myself from everything and others opinion/views/facts,etc and try to find answers in me, what my subconscious/unconscious(hard to get there) is saying and i've come to realization to many, many things.

    i don't consider what my parents taught me/believe in, what my friends believe in, what scientists say..just what i fucking feel inside me.

    i'm into Buddhism/meditating a lot i just accomplished astral projection.
    and i just wonder..what the fuck is reality.
    look at this world, the economy is going to shit, war is going on, people killing people, like what's the right way to fucking live? because honestly,fuck it.

    at school, i have a few people i like but i do not connect with them at all at on a deeper level. someone i would like is someone like yourself but that is rare.
    i seek solitude and want to find answers.

    i want to travel the world and experience everything. i want to know everything and understand all of it.

    i'm not happy in living a "normal" life.
    i surround myself with nature and spiritualistic(irreligious) things.

    i need to get out of this puny town with people who i can't connect to (i'm a senior in high school) so life right now is confusing to me. do i go to college?? what am i going to do in society? i want to be a hermit. but i will miss my family, who are the most important people in my life and always will be.

    i'm going crazy, i have all these thoughts and i'm thinking maybe i'm schizo.

    i am just not content.

    i know this is probably off to where you are, and are maybe older and wiser than me but i do understand you.

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  • Terence_the_viking
    11 years ago

    Ereh Coota tuy koonta zanos na ami busi tomar mootara andar khaylas

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  • jessicia16
    13 years ago

    americia has nothing here except a few recent broken over-hyped shards of tradition... yet we push our moralistic views on the rest of the world, it goes against the grain of thousands of years of nature.... anyway i think what you wrote is quite normal and very well said.

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  • shed505
    13 years ago

    I used to feel like I was a refugee, like I didn't really belong anywhere. a lot of my paintings were about this desire for a HOME. Now I am concentrating on being at home in my own skin anywhere. concentrating on trying to slow my thoughts down so i have some control over my wayward mind. That's after moving from town to town job to job searchin searching, maybe I had to do that for a while just to experience it. I live in England UK where there are a lot of historic bits to feel nostalgic for, but funnily enough my Grandfather was American and his family I only recently found out were Lebanese refugees. I think knowing about my roots when I was younger may have helped. Exploring different places can be fun or it can be exhausting. Happy travels! xxx

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  • XxINCHAINSxX
    14 years ago

    You would like John Lilly.

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  • theanswerisprobablynotnormal
    15 years ago

    wait...how can someone be both nostalgic and wanderlusting at the same time?

    are you saying that if you digress far enough from wherever you are you'll get nostalgia? b/c that's not true or at least it depends who you are

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