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There\u2019s a familiar quip, \u201cNostalgia isn\u2019t what it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a familiar quip, \u201cNostalgia isn\u2019t what it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
We can laugh at this statement for its pure absurdity. We can also recognize our desire to glorify the past by making up stories around events even as we know the stories we tell ourselves fall short of capturing the whole truth.<\/p>\n
Nostalgia has been on my mind a lot since Christmas. So much effort goes into family members traveling great distances to spend a few short days to sleep in their childhood bedroom or have a meal with their parents and siblings.<\/p>\n
So much care goes into decorating the family tree with ornaments that, having their own stories, have been passed from one generation to the next.<\/p>\n
I, personally, watched the Capra classic, \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d on TV five times in two days. I know I\u2019m not alone in this ritual. What makes me do this? It\u2019s not as if I don\u2019t know the ending.<\/p>\n
There seems to be a longing to return to a world that operates in familiar ways.<\/p>\n
But, were the \u201cgood old days\u201d really so good? Did people get to express themselves fully? Did <\/span>everyone<\/strong> get to exercise choice? Or were the good old days just good for some people, often at someone else\u2019s expense?<\/span><\/p>\n In the beloved Christmas movie, could the Bailey\u2019s black housekeeper have been anything but a housekeeper? Could fun-loving Violet find a career in town where she was neither a Sunday School teacher nor floozy.<\/p>\n Of course, the underlying message of the film is not aimed at romanticizing the past. It\u2019s aimed at reaffirming the value of each individual life, showing us how any person\u2019s life affects other lives in ways that can\u2019t always be understood. But it sort of pits the past against change.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an ongoing tension between holding on to the past as an ideal or feeding dreams of exploring the unknown, the past being laden with the values of family and duty.<\/p>\n All through the story, George Bailey tries to break from the script that moves his life forward and fails\u2014 beautifully.<\/p>\n Instead of venturing to a south sea island or embarking on a life of building things, \u201cbig, important things,\u201d he ends up running his father\u2019s business and marrying the girl that had her eyes on him since before she would have worn a training bra had they been invented yet.<\/p>\n I probably have a little different take on the final scene than most people. I have to invoke the words of Ram Das. \u201cBe here now.\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t say that the movie shows us \u201cit\u2019s a wonderful life\u201d because George chooses family as his foundation or helps Clarence earn his wings, or even because, after his strange time traveling adventure, he rediscovers Zuzu\u2019s petals in his pocket.<\/p>\n At the end of the movie, George Bailey finds himself living fully in the moment<\/strong>. It\u2019s not what he sees that matters, but rather that he sees how the things he loves and values are present in his life.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a wonderful life specifically because <\/strong>he has a family, or foiled Old Man Potter\u2019s attempts to take over the town, or even because he saved his younger brother\u2019s life when they were both children.<\/p>\n He loves being a father and husband, being a home town hero, and being of service \u2013 and can see how all these things are present in the moment.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t need to have a family or sense of fulfilled duty in order to be happy \u2013 unless that\u2019s what YOU, personally, value. Each person might want different things, but everyone can find joy when they train their mind to notice that what they value is already in their lives.<\/p>\n Knowing that you can see things that you can genuinely value and appreciate in the moment is no small thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a familiar quip, \u201cNostalgia isn\u2019t what it used to be.\u201d We can laugh at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[632],"tags":[729,732,731,735,730,54,734,733],"class_list":["post-7393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-blog","tag-capra","tag-exercise-choice","tag-george-bailey","tag-in-the-moment","tag-its-a-wonderful-life","tag-no-small-thing","tag-ram-das","tag-training-bra","grateful-dozen-musings-imaginings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n