Since this is a new forum for my pen, there are perhaps many who aren’t familiar with my obsession with nostalgia. That true kind, the one that “captures the sadness of life passing.” Nostalgia is a topic I find popping up quite often. One with which I spend a fair amount of time obsessing. There is something about memory and the ephemeral nature of the present that just fascinates me.
Eyesight is Unnecessary when Chasing Dragons
The inherent tragedy in our life is the simple desolation of time. This is more acutely felt now, with SXSW a week in retrospect. Those moments of bliss as you became one with the tunes showering down over you seem so far away. That feeling of booze filled joy, swaying along to music is impossible to reduplicate. It lives only as a half-formed feeling onto which you can’t quite latch.
Though somewhat out of colloquial context, it’s as if we are constantly forced to chase the dragon–a hedonist in search of an indescribable feeling of happiness. Is that a life? Can we exist seeking only those indefinable moments of joy? I fear that in active search you are simply fated to never truly experience them. Recognizing those moments are much like the myth of the unicorn—only those not seeking a unicorn could ever be blessed enough to stumble across one. And similarly fated are we, those dragon chasers.
While those who unexpectedly happen to see a unicorn in a sunny meadow recognize it immediately, we are often unable to register our own blissful moments for what they are. That dawning light of recognition truly sinks into our consciousness only after that signature experience has disappeared into the thick forest of the past.
Warm dreams of things past float into the air like a scent emanating from an oven. It is with us and all around us, but lost to us just the same. It can only be known in our hearts and minds. And for that we are forced to cope with a bottomless melancholy, one that acknowledges the passing of time yet still feebly fights against. We accrue smile after smile, experience after experience, blindly seeking the happiness we know we once had…and yet we never seem to find ourselves there. Which is the very definition of a tragedy.
Wait...doesn't "chasing the dragon" technically mean shooting up with heroin? or is it snorting coke? or was it meant to refer to opium dens?
thebluebird
As a phrase, the usage has changed over the years (originally, it was a technique to smoke opium). The more modern meaning/usage represents the search for the ultimate high. I appropriated it to represent something completely unrelated to drugs. I was using it to represent the chase/search for great times/memories, etc.
leigh
It’s kind of interesting because I am coaching a college women’s ultimate team and as we prepare for the season we have talked a lot about the mental preparation. And in doing so I noticed that a ton of self help guru’s and popular tv personalities (oprah, ellen) are into this whole movement of ‘you can’t be truly happy until you are living in the moment/living consciously’ (don’t know the exact verbiage). I was talking to my team about it in terms of playing – you can’t do anything about your last drop, you can’t do anything about the next game, what you can focus on is your current matchup/current decision etc. maybe there is some truth in there.
are these moments better in the present, or relived as memories? you can have just as many smiles and laughs sitting around telling stories of past revelry, but you'll never look back one day and say 'remember that time we told stories all night'
ps - i thought maybe you were calling me a dragon when i first saw the post and picture.
thebluebird
That's the thing. I don't think you're ever really able to tell that the moment is "great" until it has past and you are seeing it in retrospect. I love looking back on the great times...it's hella fun for sure, there is just something sort of bittersweet about it too.
And yes...you are a dragon.
imattclark
I could see you saying, 'remember that time we told stories all night?'
Howard Vernon
All of this is true. Perhaps this idea explains why Americans are obsessed with the future, whereas other cultures are more "easy-going". During my summer in Spain, I would want to get things done before my class started at 9:30 am and to my dismay, none of the stores or anything was open before 10 am. Americans are so busy chasing the dragon for the future that they miss the unicorn moment right in front of them, while others recognize the unicorn in the field, but lament not spending more time with unicorn that they too continuosly chase the dragon by trying to recreate past experiences. Americans think that if I can only reach this milestone or this level of wealth, then I will be happy only to find that they are addicted to the chase and cannot stop, always desiring more. We are both unable to truly enjoy the unicorn moments because of our relentless pursuits of the dragon, albeit in different manners. Another question to ask: does the backward-looking nature of nostalgia cause us to remember something as being better than it was? Good article.
Dragon Chasing
Since this is a new forum for my pen, there are perhaps many who aren’t familiar with my obsession with nostalgia. That true kind, the one that “captures the sadness of life passing.” Nostalgia is a topic I find popping up quite often. One with which I spend a fair amount of time obsessing. There is something about memory and the ephemeral nature of the present that just fascinates me.
Eyesight is Unnecessary when Chasing Dragons
The inherent tragedy in our life is the simple desolation of time. This is more acutely felt now, with SXSW a week in retrospect. Those moments of bliss as you became one with the tunes showering down over you seem so far away. That feeling of booze filled joy, swaying along to music is impossible to reduplicate. It lives only as a half-formed feeling onto which you can’t quite latch.
Though somewhat out of colloquial context, it’s as if we are constantly forced to chase the dragon–a hedonist in search of an indescribable feeling of happiness. Is that a life? Can we exist seeking only those indefinable moments of joy? I fear that in active search you are simply fated to never truly experience them. Recognizing those moments are much like the myth of the unicorn—only those not seeking a unicorn could ever be blessed enough to stumble across one. And similarly fated are we, those dragon chasers.
While those who unexpectedly happen to see a unicorn in a sunny meadow recognize it immediately, we are often unable to register our own blissful moments for what they are. That dawning light of recognition truly sinks into our consciousness only after that signature experience has disappeared into the thick forest of the past.
Warm dreams of things past float into the air like a scent emanating from an oven. It is with us and all around us, but lost to us just the same. It can only be known in our hearts and minds. And for that we are forced to cope with a bottomless melancholy, one that acknowledges the passing of time yet still feebly fights against. We accrue smile after smile, experience after experience, blindly seeking the happiness we know we once had…and yet we never seem to find ourselves there. Which is the very definition of a tragedy.