THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS

FITZROVIA

NOSTALGIA

1 OFF-GRID FANTASY

You’re in the pub with three friends: Ally, Ewan, and Magda.

Ally’s just been telling you all about her alarmingly high screentime: 12 hours per day last week.

Ally:

“I just want to get away from this crazy modern way of life. I want to go back a couple hundred years. Live like the Amish. Make a fire in the morning, look after some animals, watch the sun go down without any sirens in the background, without the constant presence of screens.”

Ewan:

“That’s so not what pre-modern life was like. You’re thinking of a romanticised, trad wife life, which, ironically, you’ve probably seen on instagram. Reality a couple of hundred years ago would have been full of hardship and disease and suffering. You’re feeling nostalgic for something that never existed.”

Magda:

“But isn’t that what nostalgia is? A fantasy about the past. When people feel nostalgic, they never remember the whole picture, they just remember the bits they like. They long for something unobtainable and embellish it to be better than it was. If you feel nostalgic about a past relationship, you’re not thinking about all the things that didn’t work in that relationship, you’re just thinking about the good stuff.”

Ally:

“So should I kill the fantasy? Or try and make it a reality? Maybe it’s impossible to really live away from screens, but I could try and lean a bit more in that direction, lean into my fantasy?”

Magda:

“Maybe that’s why we feel nostalgic, to help us work out what we want more of in life.”

Ewan:

“I guess as long as you know it's an unobtainable fantasy it could be helpful. But too many people get back together with their ex’s because they only remember the good stuff. So make sure you experience some of the hardship of an off-grid life before you throw away your modern conveniences.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

Can you be nostalgic for something you’ve not experienced?
Do you agree with Magda that nostalgia is based on a positive fantasy rather than reality?
Can you feel nostalgic for something negative? Or does nostalgia have to be longing for something positive?
Why do you think humans feel nostalgic?
Should Ally listen to her nostalgia? Or kill the fantasy?
Have you had any experiences of nostalgia that might contain messages?

SOURCE: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member

2 BITTERSWEET MELANCHOLY

Priya has been playing a lot of Leonard Cohen recently.

Over the years, Leonard Cohen has been described as: “poet laureate of pessimism, godfather of gloom, agent of anguish, sentry of solitude, master of miserabilism, harbinger of the heart, so on and so forth.” (Harrington, 2006).

Leonard Cohen’s music reminds Priya of a Winter a few years ago:

She’d just arrived in London.
She was single.
She was full of post-English-Literature-degree ambitions.
She probably would have described herself as a tortured poet.

Her life is a lot more settled now, and she is much happier. But the other day, when Leonard Cohen came on the radio, she experienced a vivid, visceral memory of that Winter: the cast of the light, the temperature of the air, her own inner turmoil.

In particular, she remembers one evening she spent walking around and around the outside of the Natural History museum. She was listening to Leonard Cohen’s last album: You Want It Darker. She remembers feeling very alive to the beauty and the sorrow of the world, watching the weak light of the street lamps struggle against the 6pm darkness.

Priya’s husband, Tom, has noticed a lot of Leonard Cohen in the ‘recently played’ section of their shared Spotify account. He’s also noticed a wistful look in Priya’s eye.

He says: “Let’s do something to cheer you up.”

Priya isn’t sure what to say. She doesn’t feel cheerful, but she also doesn’t feel like being cheered up. She feels irresistibly drawn to this wistful mood and wants to stay in it for a little longer. She’s managed to do a lot more writing since it began. That’s why she’s been playing Leonard Cohen, to lean into the mood rather than come out of it.

She’s glad Winter is coming. Summer would be so garish in this state of mind.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

Is Priya in a ‘bad’ mood?
How would you describe her state of mind?
How would you categorise nostalgia? Does it fit better with ‘happy’ or ‘sad’?
Have you ever felt like leaning into a sadness/loss/longing/melancholia? Would you say you enjoyed it?
Why do you think artists and poets are often described as ‘tortured’ or ‘suffering’ or ‘unhappy’?
What is the relationship between powerful emotion and art?
If nostalgia and melancholy can be generative, should we encourage them? Or is it better to try and ‘cheer up’?
Why does music sometimes unlock feelings of nostalgia?

SOURCES:

BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member.

Harrington, R. (2006, July 13). At 71, Leonard Cohen finds his voice anew. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/07/14/at-71-leonard-cohen-finds-his-voice-anew/304e0a5f-f6ed-41a9-ba04-48ff3d13d108/

The AirBnB host has left a little booklet of information on the table. It includes instructions for the heating, how to use the complex coffee machine, and local recommendations.

The host writes: “My top recommendation has got to be a walk down Land Lane. It’s like travelling the world in 15 minutes.”

You’re intrigued. After settling in and enjoying a very nice cup of coffee, you set out for Land Lane.

The city is generally quite grey and repetitive, but when you turn the corner onto Land Lane, you are greeted by a riot of colour. Shop fronts seem to be competing with one another to be the most attention grabbing. There’s no unifying style, they all look different.

You begin walking down the street and two more of your senses are overwhelmed. Sounds and scents overlap and combine, making their origins difficult to trace.

Your host was right, this street is unlike any other. You walk up and down several times, familiarising yourself.

An elderly woman sitting outside one of the cafés calls you over. She says: “You’ve been walking up and down! Are you a visitor?”

You say “yes”.

She says: “Let me tell you about this place.

We’re in the old immigrant corner of the city. This is where all our ancestors came when they first arrived, each bringing their customs, cuisines, and music. That’s why it feels so alive. We’ve transformed our suffering into something beautiful.”

You ask her to tell you more and she continues:

“Well we’re all nostalgic. Do you know what nostalgia means? ‘Nostos’ means ‘return’ and ‘algos’ means ‘pain’. It’s basically homesickness. That’s why we all do our best to recreate little pieces of our old homes here. But just look at what that suffering has produced!

We’ve created a new tapestry. Have you seen some of the fusions going on here? I’ve just eaten a “fish and chip taco”!

It’s weird, I’ve always missed home, but now I think if I left this place and went home, I’d miss being here…maybe I’d end up opening a fish and chip tacos shop there…maybe not!”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

How important is nostalgia in preserving tradition?
How important is nostalgia in forming new cultures and customs?
What is ‘home’?
Why do you think humans experience ‘homesickness’?
Do you think nostalgia is a universal human experience? Do you think it is heightened under certain circumstances?
How sensory is nostalgia? Why are particular smells/sounds/sights sometimes triggers for nostalgia?
How might nostalgia enrich society? How might it stifle society?

SOURCE: BA, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Group Member