Video: Why We Love Nostalgia

Why do we love Nostalgia so much? Nostalgia is a sentimental affection for the past, a longing for a period or place with happy associations. So why do we love it? We’re wired to forget the intensity of past life-challenges and hardships, and yet we tend to remember the good stuff. Additionally, research shows that people tend to remember more events from age 10 to 30 than from any other time, because that when they’re forming their identities. So nostalgia is not a true recreation of the past, but a combination of many different memories, all integrated together, and in the process all negative emotions filtered out.

Our minds remember fleeting feelings, emotions, and moments of glee. As it turns out, nostalgia isn’t about remembering memories at all, but rather an emotional state. We lock away bits of happy experiences into people, places, times, and even objects, and love recalling them and reminiscing over them later.

The Sandlot is a film from the 1990s and regarded as one of the most nostalgically significant of the generation. The core of the film is really about friendship and helping one another. Rabbi Pinchas Taylor spoke with the film’s director and cast members about nostalgia, and teaches the value that it brings to humanity.