How to Remember only the Good Things
'Nostalgia, as always, had wiped away the bad memories and magnified the good ones’ - Gabriel García Márquez
1. Why we Think of the Past: Endings
This is why when we speak of remembrance, we think of good times even when the endings have been sad. Remembering is essentially nostalgia and as the quote above leads us to think, there is a rationale behind the wiping away of the bad memories and amplification of the good ones. The rationale is that we are inherently positive beings who would go back to the power of positive memories and allow ourselves to be healed with their affective power.
2. Healing Power of Remembrance
So the first thing about remembering good things is this, their power to heal. So when down and out and feeling low, one could easily use just their minds to reverse the process and fill themselves by positive vibes. The process being remembrance of good things, gone by. They remind us of when life was brighter and better and how we are with a little effort going to be the same person if we try hard to think and then re-think our current scenarios. The power of memories is thus such that they can lead to change in our present lives.
3. Remembrance and Its Life-affirming Nature
The third aspect of us remembering good things is the fact of us being inherently rational beings, we understand the value of life and move towards positivity. Our thinking process, like our practical processes is essentially life-affirming. Remembering good things, going back into our past is then ironically enough a moving forward in our lives.
4. Finding Meaning in the Present Day
The next aspect apart from healing and movement is to be assured on the whole, that life has some meaning. It isn’t meaningless when it does seem to be. Our memories make some sense, we can connect the dots and we can be assured that there might be a larger purpose even though on the face of it, it might not be visible to us in the present.
5. Understanding the Concept of Time
And finally, we are essentially beings whose sense of time is not linear. Our present is molded by thoughts of the future. So obviously we hope for the best and we draw back from the future the best possible and then hope to live the best. That’s why we should remember essentially the good stuff and let go of the bad.
Overall then, remembrance serves a larger purpose than just being lazy and getting lost in the thoughts of good time. Remembrance heals the present, it gives direction to our future and it nuances our present and finally gives us an understanding of the present time. Remembrance then is a positive, life-affirming natural activity that one must indulge in. That’s why diaries are written and conversations about the nostalgia of the past are held and thus, the present is enjoyed.
Let remembrance then be a form of therapy not found yet. A personal cherishing activity that one takes joy and even pain to indulge in, but its worth it. Pain because good times, as mentioned above, may have sad endings. And it may be, most times, the sad endings that propel us to go back in time, to the positive good memories. Pain emerges from them and so does the healing vibes; the process of healing is located in the memories of good time. Because, you cannot make good from the bad.
You need the power of good intermingling with the bad emotions (sadness) to make a better future. Hence, the recourse to the past, and to the best of the past. To the good old memories, and so much has been written about them, so many movies are hence made and some many novellas written and read.
