Among the books I am currently reading, is Bill Bryson’s ” The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid”. A memoir of sorts, about him growing up in America in the 50s. His pages are filled with exaggerated humor, in true Bryson style, and I find myself smiling, occasionally breaking into loud peals of laughter, and mostly reminiscing about my own Wonder Years (yes, the show too, for those who know).
I sometimes actually wonder (why am I using this word again) how we grew up in the late 80s/early 90s…there was no internet – at least not at home and surely not the way it is consumed today, a couple of TV channels before 1991, so well, how did we fill our days and months?
Me for one was an avid reader, but there is only so much you can read right? Besides, I didn’t have access to an endless stream of books (like right now) and so I would have spent time doing other stuff. What though, I cannot recollect much. What I do know is that time passed slower, better, and was generally more fulfilling, even though we didn’t do much at the end of it.
And the funny part was, you could set out early evening, say around 4, and go back home by sunset, maybe around 7, without our parents being worried sick – these were the days without mobile phones and WhatsApp, so well, if we were a bit late, no one had a panic attack. I don’t know how me the parent of 2025 would have dealt with such situations, without the aforementioned tech in the mix (shudders).
Another aspect of life that Bryson highlights is the uniqueness of our communities. This is before the global chains took over – to a point that most of our current cities have the same mega restaurants, the same grocers, the same supermarkets, book stores, pharmacies (or “medicals”, as we called them in Bangalore)…back in the day, each of these were well, independent, mostly small businesses run by actual people who you knew and more importantly, who knew you back.
Anyhow, here is something that I wrote some time back, on the subject. Do have a read. And yes, grab anything that has the combination of the following letters – BILL BRYSON – on its cover. And thank me later.
Nostalgia is an odd feeling.
One is nostalgic at all points in life – it’s almost as if the times that we passed by were always better than the times that we are in at present.
This image below was widely circulated last week – I too got nostalgic, like most others. It was a welcome change to have so many options after watching a single channel since the time I had realized what a television was.
It was an exercise to mark the programs that were of interest and then surf channels to get there at the appointed time. Especially repeat telecasts, that made up for the ones that we had missed.
And so many movie choices!
Anyways, that was that. I don’t think that we are facing a dearth of channels or movies or television series anytime soon, so…
Why do we look back in time and yearn for those ‘wonder years’? There is no way that they will be back, and in most cases, we are better off now than we were then. If only we thought of the ‘future us’ looking back at the ‘present us’ and reminiscing…wouldn’t that mean that we are in an enjoyable moment, but probably not realizing it?
Or a pessimistic approach would be that life progressively gets worse. Ahem. Not the best way to go about it yes?
The past does not exist, and all we derive from it is learning and experience. The future – no one knows. The present moment is what is, and its so sad that we do not appreciate it. That we are living at this moment in time is a blessing in itself. Life becomes simpler the day we start thinking of the present, of the here and now.
What say?