You can feel nostalgia for things that you haven't yet lost

[Celerity]

Nostalgia is a longing for the past, but psychologists are coming to realise it can focus on the future too

https://psyche.co/ideas/you-can-feel-nostalgia-for-things-that-you-havent-yet-lost



Most of us are familiar with nostalgia: a longing remembrance of, say, a wedding, a graduation or a family celebration. It’s a predominantly positive feeling, though it’s mixed with a tinge of longing for what’s already gone. As the author Michael Chabon wrote in The New Yorker in ‘The True Meaning of Nostalgia’ (2017), it’s a moment when ‘you have placed a phone call directly into the past and heard an answering voice.’

That’s the usual take on the emotion, but recently psychologists have come to recognise that there is more than one type of nostalgia, including some varieties that are focused less on the past, and more on the future, called ‘anticipated nostalgia’ and ‘anticipatory nostalgia’ (there’s some indication that other emotions can be experienced in an anticipatory way too, such as enjoyment, anxiety, pride, self-anger and relief, but it’s only in recent years that psychologists have looked at nostalgia in this light).

Anticipated nostalgia is having the foresight that you will one day be nostalgic for a certain experience. ‘Anticipated emotions are expected to be experienced in the future,’ says Wing Yee Verbon Cheung, at the University of Winchester. As the country singer Trace Adkins sang: ‘You’re gonna miss this,/ You’re gonna want this back,/ You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast.’

Meanwhile, anticipatory nostalgia is missing what has not yet been lost, that is still taking place, according to Krystine Batcho at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. Despite having similar names, the distinction between anticipated and anticipatory nostalgia is when the emotion is experienced: the yearn of anticipatory nostalgia occurs in the present moment, whereas the emotional pang of anticipated nostalgia has yet to come.

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[llmart]

1. Interesting article.

I tend to be a rather nostalgic person, so I have experienced many moments of "anticipatory nostalgia". I've been housebound for a couple of days and watched two PBS programs - concerts from the early 70's of John Denver and Carole King. They were taped outdoor concerts and they showed all the young people sitting on the lawn enjoying the music of that era. It actually took me back to when I was that age - even some of the outfits the girls were wearing reminded me of some of the clothes I wore. It's interesting how memories can be triggered.

[rsdsharp]

2. It's delicate. . . but potent.

&pp=ygUNbWFkIG1lbiBraWRhaw%3D%3D

[Celerity]

3. one of the greatest scenes in American telly history

[misanthrope]

4. I think anticipatory nostalgia heightens appreciation

We too often do a poor job of relishing what we have in the moment we have it. As a nod to a time period referenced by another poster in this thread, it's like Carly Simon once sang, "These are the good old days."

[BWdem4life]

5. I'm gonna miss democracy. nt