Nostalgia can be fatal
For hundreds of years, nostalgia was seen as a serious disease, with doctors across Europe scrambling for a cure. Hundreds of thousands of people died from it.
In the original understanding of the term, it was a sort of homesickness. Soldiers from Switzerland were the first to get the official diagnosis–separated from their friends, family and homes, these young men would suffer from melancholy and would waste away, sometimes fatally.
As it spread, one theory was that it afflicted people from places that were at high altitude. As more humans traveled, often under duress (for example, enslaved people kidnapped from their homes and brought by ship to the new world), the suffering increased.
It’s not hard to see how a sudden, involuntary dislocation could be debilitating. Particularly if home was a place that was insulated from sudden change and fast-moving culture.
Today, future shock is bringing a new, if milder form of the affliction. As technology, jobs and culture shift faster than ever before, it’s understandable that many are yearning for a return to an imagined past. When the future arrives uninvited, it can feel like being pulled from a comfortable village in the middle of the night.
Knowing our peers are encountering challenges with the transitions at work or at home can give us the insight to build the scaffolding they need to find their footing. And perhaps we can offer ourselves a bit of grace as well.