> [!Quote] [@towndarling](https://bsky.app/profile/towndarling.bsky.social/post/3lkz225nyfk2e) > nostalgia is remembering when you didn't have to pay bills and attributing that feeling to mario. I'm in my nostalgia arc right now. It's been funny to see it creep over me as 2025 has fully kicked into gear. It started with getting into [[Less Doomscrolling More Silly Lil Tech Toys|retro consoles]]. Then it was listening to albums I loved as a kid. Then it was listening to Anime OPs from the early 2000s on loop. Which turned into *rewatching* those same anime. Which extended to, "hey, why don't we just put **The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air** on loop on the TV again, like Nick@Nite used to do!" I'm fully submerged in it, and I'm kind of fine with that. You could also rewrite this post's name as "The Escapism Arc." I'm retreating into the past to escape the future. It's probably not the *healthiest*, but at the moment I truly don't care. Everything is bad lately and thinking about Chrono Trigger or crying to the ending of [[Mother 3]] again helps me to not think about it for just a bit. There isn't really a thesis to this, other than that I guess I thought I wouldn't be this guy? I always thought I'd be "better" than that. That I'd be fine with just getting new experiences for the rest of my life until I die. That's obviously unsustainable in retrospect, but it also doesn't mean that I won't be open to new experiences forever, either. There's a bit of healthy balance that I'm going to try and hit, even after this arc runs its course. It's to the point where I used to stay away from replaying games or rewatching movies I love because I wanted to make sure I continue to engage with new stuff that I might love. But just like I reread **East of Eden** every year, there's been a benefit to going to old games I love these past few months. For one, I'm getting old, and honestly forgetting the details of these games, which kind of makes it feel like I'm experiencing them all over again, LOL. But on top of that, it's cool to reexperience stuff as an entirely different person than I was when I first engaged with it. I have years of a fully developed prefrontal cortex and the grand sum of my life experiences to draw from as I think about this old media again, and that's fun. Plus as I've mentioned before, I now am more consistent about taking notes on these games that I can go back to as I build out this website long-term. Creating these records with my thoughts makes my nostalgia arc feel a little more..."refined," maybe? Like I'm getting something out of it beyond, "man, remember how good it used to be?" Do you engage with your own sense of nostalgia a lot? Are you constantly pushing for new experiences like I usually am? [Let me know](https://bsky.app/profile/taniyn.quest)!