As is the wont, in the serene, peaceful ambience that one’s commode provides.

Beautiful people, places, days, and moments.

Some trivial, some profound, yet both offering a warmth one scarcely finds in normal life.

It’s normal to get lost in it.

To glamorise it and eulogise it, just to bring back the memory of that smile, once again upon one’s face.

Nostalgia is beautiful.

Always strumming those strings one has completely forgotten they had.

Yet it is also double-edged, becoming a trap when used unwisely.

It nudges us into comparing the present with a past that somehow appears more beautiful.

In doing so, it holds us back from fully submerging ourselves in the ever-bountiful present, much like the many “presents” experienced before.

There is a bounty of joy waiting to be lived, but only if we don’t let nostalgia trespass, or in worse cases, trample upon it.

The Stoics knew this two thousand years ago: we lose today by hanging upon tomorrow or yesterday.

The Buddha called it tanha, that insatiable craving which binds us to dissatisfaction.

The antidote is not to stop remembering, but to stop weaponizing memory against the Now.