You Can Never Go Back

Waxing nostalgic about places once dear to us.

The Voyage of Life: Childhood by Thomas Cole, 1842 (public domain - National Gallery of Art)

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” — Heraclitus, c. 500 BC

Do you remember that gigantic hill you once sledded down as a kid? When the snow was so deep, the sled so fast, and the hill so steep when you had to climb it again?

If you went back for another run in recent years, it probably lost its luster. It was neither quite as tall nor as steep and the snow was a little thinner.

And just like that, your perfectly saccharine childhood memory was dashed into a million snowflakes, never again seeming as legendary as it was in your mind.

You can thank nostalgia for that.

The origin of the word nostalgia comes from two Greek roots: nóstos, meaning “homecoming,” and álgos, meaning “pain.”

When the term was first coined in the 1600s, it was associated with soldiers abroad who were depressed, experiencing a kind of homesickness. Their pr…