Nostalgia Revisited

It occurred to me in the middle of the night (which is now less frustrating because I can dictate it as a text and send it to my email without having to turn on the lights, find a pen and paper, etc) that one of my interests in the people of my youth is not just the sighing and remembering, but considering how we got from there to here.  I mentioned the continuities of people last summer, plus how they resent the suggestion but I see it clearly.  I acknowledge that I may overfit, but I still say it holds.  There is good data that shows people can change things about themselves with effort, and that targeted therapy works, true. Anxious people can have some CBT sessions and reduce their anxiety down to manageable or even normal levels. They are unlikely to ever become phlegmatic, however. The efficacy of targeted changing and the persistence of general personality are just two sides of the same coin. People see their changes more prominently because those have been the aspects of themselves on the cutting edge: the skills or filters or self-controls that they have had to work hard at in order to be good at their marriage, or their job, or their parenting. They are proud that they have done it, and should be.  But the rest of their selves in whatever sense has not been pressed into service quite so much and has blithely marched along, looking much the same in 1974 and 2024.

I may be kidding myself, and this may be no better than merely sighing, getting weepy, and remembering old songs, but it seems a better use of my brain space.

I noticed this at 2AM because I realised that the narratives I am most interested in fall into one of two categories: either I knew a great deal of the early story, especially if I had actually seen the person interact with their parents, or I knew a great deal of the later story and wondered how it had gotten its start. If I knew a lot about the beginning, or I had a lot of information about the middle and the end, I wanted to know the rest. But people whose biographies might look more interesting on paper, but I had no solid experience of, did not charm as much.  In both cases, I think it is my own knowledge of parenting and grandparenting that makes the difference. I would not have known good from bad except in the obvious cases as an adolescent, but now I can look at what was done and think Wait. What kind of parent lets their kid be that unaccountable?  Did they...WANT her to remain a child? Why...oh dear God no...well, I wonder. Though also the positive. Now that I have some idea what their income was, spread over that many children, it's pretty impressive.  Not just that they made ends meet, but that all of them seemed to be without resentment or jealousy.  What was behind that?

I am mostly interested in puzzles more than charm.  As often happens, a few biographies I want to know more of suddenly occured to me, and a few others that I am never going to be interested in did as well.

There was another section to this, before the computer froze up and swallowed it.  I hope I remember it.

"The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali.  I still don't get it, but I feel like I get it more every year.