The "Good Old Days" Paradox...

[SteyrAUG]

It seems that once you reach a certain age, you yearn to relive your time in a world that mostly no longer exists.

While some simply mourn their childhood and wish to return to a sheltered life where somebody else was responsible for their well being, others recognize the loss of many actual things from quality of life to enjoyed freedoms.

Most of us will never know the freedoms our parents enjoyed and even fewer can comprehend the freedoms out grandparents enjoyed. And almost without exception, life was "mostly" better. Now obviously if you were a child during the depression of the 1930s you probably vastly preferred life in post war America and if you were born into slavery but found a better life after abolition then obviously your "good old days" wouldn't have been so grand.

But the result for most of us is we feel like we were born too late, that we mostly "missed it" and are now living in the decline of our civilization despite any technological advances we might enjoy. Some of us would chuck it all, M4s and modern medicine included, for a chance to have lived in the 1950s or even frontier America because we feel we would have enjoyed a higher quality of life and been more fulfilled.

But there is a problem, say you could have gone back to be born at a time when you'd have been young during the 50s, lived your middle age in the 80s and passed on before everything went to shit culturally. Even during the 80s, when most of us consider things to have been "almost perfect" you would have a new perspective and still miss the 50s even more and you'd be willing to trade it all to have gone back "one generation" prior.

Even if you went back to frontier days when land was given free to homesteaders and you were able to live as you wished, hunt and gather to survive and live an existence that some millionaire would give everything to have been able to have known, you'd still have an earlier experience that was likely idealized and preferred (unless of course you lived through some great difficulty as a child) and you'd probably be willing to trade it all to have gone back "one generation" prior.

Now I'm not saying everyone in the 80s desperately wanted to return to the 70s, most of us realized that with few "specific exceptions" it sucked. But we might have traded video games, 80's new wave and Reagan for malt shops, 50's rock and Eisenhower because it seemed like a simpler time when we might have been more successful, more fulfilled. Some of us would have willingly gone back even further. Myself, I still think I'd have needed television.

Now I think the future will always be a mix of great leaps in technology, some cultural advances and possibly even some new guarantees on freedoms not completely enjoyed, but always with the eventual increase in governmental control and as a result we will always miss the "good old days" even if we don't realize that no matter when we are born, we'd still probably be nostalgic about a period of our youth or even a time before we were born that we only heard about from our parents or grandparents.

[hotbiggun42]

Do yourself a favor and turn off the TV, grab your fishing pole and spend some time outdoors. Life is great here in America.
Politicians, actors, news, can kiss my ass I don’t need their bullshit in my life.

[Ed L.]

Great post.

Speaking of nostalgia, I remember when I got my first real gun as a teenager. I think I was 14 and I got a Marlin 336C in .35 Remington. I don't think anything I ever bought could match the specialness of a teenage me getting an honest to God real gun.

I selected the Marlin 336C in .35 Remington at the advice of a family friend who was a NYPD cop who owned one and hunted deer with it. He assured me that the .35 Remington would do a better job of "brush-busting" than a 30-06, and would go through a tree that the 30-06 would either divert right or left upon hitting. I really liked that gun and felt that with it I was ready for anything that I could possibly face in NY State--be it black bears or burglars. There is a special feeling in getting your first gun. Years later I wound up selling that gun and then regretting the sale decades after I made it.

I wanted to get another Marlin Levergun, but I'd heard bad things about modern Marlins mechanically wise. The wood on the stock and forearm of the 336C that I owned was far nicer than any of the stocks on the modern Marlins.

Then last December I walked into my favorite gun store and they had an older Marlin 336C in 30-30 in excellent shape. In this day and age I prefer a 30-30 over a .35 Remington for better ammo availability. The gun had a recoil pad and scope mount, so I snapped it up for $950, which is a good price for this gun. Here is a picture of it:

[TomMcC]

Nostalgic? Maybe. There are few good memories, not many. Like driving around with my grandfather in his old pickup on the farm he worked when I was 6 years old. Having the run of the neighborhood playing with long gone friends without a care in the world. Most of those days just bring melancholy to my mind now. No real father, friends that really weren't my friends, bad behavior on my part, too much booze. I now look to a future life more and more. After all we are but the grass of the field.

[BoringGuy45]

I remember one of the final lines from The Office: "I wish there was a way you could know you were in the 'good old days' before you were out of them." Of course, everybody's "good old days" are different. And often one person's good old days were another person's years of hell. My "good old days" were from 2003 to 2008. From 2000 to 2003, my early high school years were shit. I was an outcast, a weirdo, and nobody liked me. In Fall of 2003, I was a high school senior and I had just finally found a group of close friends. In 2006, I began dating my now-wife. In 2007 I traveled to Greece and Turkey as part of my major. During all this time I kept my old friends, made new friends in college, and just generally was very happy in my college years. In 2008, my wife and I got engaged. In June, DC v. Heller happened. Then in the Fall of 2008, the Recession hit, Obama was elected, and everything started going downhill, and my good old days were over.

The thing is, to many, if not most, the mid-2000s were not "good old days." Maybe compared to today they were, but we were in the middle of two wars with no exit strategy, the unification we had after 9/11 was quickly fraying, the government was finding ways to clamp down on freedom in the name of antiterrorism, and we didn't even have a settled case recognizing our rights to own firearms. So not all was well. But for my personal life, it was a great time.

[AKDoug]

I'm 53. No time in my life has been "better", just different. I'm having the time of my life right now. People lament about the "good old days" and I love to point out the historical bullshit that happened within the time period they consider the "good old days".

[SteyrAUG]

Do yourself a favor and turn off the TV, grab your fishing pole and spend some time outdoors. Life is great here in America.
Politicians, actors, news, can kiss my ass I don’t need their bullshit in my life.

Spent most of the day in the garage with some wood working projects, and it is during things like that (or fishing if I did it) that I tend to think up crap like the above. I never said life wasn't very good, hell I spent most of the day working on crap in my garage.

I did watch a movie though, and it was pretty enjoyable.

[SteyrAUG]

I'm 53. No time in my life has been "better", just different. I'm having the time of my life right now. People lament about the "good old days" and I love to point out the historical bullshit that happened within the time period they consider the "good old days".

I did try to make that point, that no matter what "idealized" period of time you think is better, there was always some bad shit going on. Some times of my life have been "better" and even though things are "pretty ok" now, they can always be even better. I've certainly had harder times.

Also I think these things are pretty relative. During the best points of my life, somewhere somebody was dealing with horrible shit. And talk to somebody who had to grow up in Cuba, East Germany or similar and you realize sometimes just having a nice pizza and a coke is a pretty good day. Also had a friend who was an engineer in the military and he had a saying that kind of stuck with me "if you're not on fire...you are having a really good day."

[Straight Shooter]

How I long for the 70's & 80's again. I KNEW I was living my best time then.
Every time my myself & my now almost 50 year best friends get together...we just nearly cry at how ****ing INSANE this once greatest country on Earth has become.
In MY lifetime we've completely changed to an almost unrecognizable form of existence.
Thankfully- it hasnt filtered down to my locale yet...but one day it will.
For those of us who were here for the change- THATS why we are more pissed than those of you who werent...WE KNOW whats been lost, what was & what could still be.
I had a wonderful, blessed childhood, in a wonderfully boring, safe, sane place, that still is.
Myself- I blame the US. media as the primary instigator in the downfall of this country. Followed closely by institutions of supposed higher learning, then liberal/leftist courts. I loathe media.
ALMOST all of it. I havent had "tv" in years & wont. Im very selective on what I read & trust online.
I only listen to handpicked music and genres of songs that I like. Probably never go to a theater again, as I wish nothing but fire & brimstone upon Hollywood. I DETEST sports, period.
Ive idealized nothing..simply stated fact. This country..this world was better back then. NO WAY the perversions we are allowing now could happen back then.
And whats sad..is its only gonna get worse & worse over time. May/may not have a short reprieve ever now & then..but over time, and not slowly either, we will keep disintegrating.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

When it comes to 'are we in good times' . Even the 80s was a mixed bag. Inflation and Recession for the first few years, as Reagan and Volker worked things out. BY 88 Reagan was gone and Bush in. 87 had the largest drop in the stock market yet and a sign of the weakness caused by our goofy financial system. SOviet Union was on teh decline- which is good, but would lead to the 90s and GWOT and America rot.

So 'the 80s" really comes down to about 84 to late 86/early 87.

Depending on how things play out, this week could be seen as an inflection point. Will teh SCOTUS decisions that came down force our politicians to actually address the issues before us rather than punt them to the courts? Is this what leads to an AMerican Democratic Rennisance? Or is it the pivot when the elites squashed that move and we continue towards their collectivist kleptocracy.