Marginalium

A note in the margins

April 24, 2025

Marginalium

My commentary on something from elsewhere on the web.

Nostalgia as a parasite:

It is now commonly understood that nostalgia can also be a prosocial emotion in the sense that it helps us recognise what is universal to all of us, such as a lost childhood or a longing to be part of romanticised versions of the past

The 17th-century medical-scientific literature possessed a weirdly inhuman and morbid philosophy of the effects of nostalgia, their diagnoses of homesickness resembling a grim tale of the fantastique.

Something like nostalgia being a fuel for an overactive imagination. Interesting read.


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