A walk down a generation we left behind

 Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong era? Like this generation of smartphones, gadgets and everything digitalized is just not for you? Don’t get me wrong, I still appreciate just how much easier things have become due to technology, but at times i can’t help but hope to go back to previous times. A time which was more interpersonal; a time which was not limited to our phone screens only.

You see, back when passing our free time did not consist of scrolling through Facebook or any other social media apps, I remember spending my late afternoons rather meaningfully with my cousins racing down the streets of our area on our bicycles, chasing each other to see who was the fastest; back when playing games was not limited to the ones available in our phones, but it was hours of playing the same card games and collecting stacks of Pokemon cards just for the fun of it. Those were undoubtedly some of the best memories of my childhood and I would do anything to revisit those moments. I guess I miss the nostalgia of it all- cause after all even if the past has been replaced by new and more improved things, the sentiment attached to certain things is something that cannot simply be mimicked. E-books are slowly but surely replacing books, but what happened to the feeling of buying a brand new book from the bookstore and relishing in the smell of its freshly printed ink hitting our noses as we slowly turn over the pages? Maybe we have lost the privilege of witnessing our favourite books growing old, its pages slowly becoming crinkled at the corners and turning a light yellow shade. Because for an old soul like me, words on a paper will mean so much more than words simply typed on a screen. Surely, text messages wishing us on our birthday are a sweet gesture, but  nothing beats our friends taking out the time to articulate their feelings and putting it down on a piece of paper in their own handwriting for us to read - the sentiment ultimately priceless and something that is truly irreplaceable. 

Decades would pass and although the pictures taken on our smartphones may definitely be of better quality, but the black and white photos sitting our our bulky albums back from the early 2000s would still hold a significant place. Perhaps music will sound sweeter when played from old cassette tapes and CDs, perhaps ice cream will taste a lot better when sold in carts by familiar street vendors who always send a smile our way and perhaps watching cartoons will be more enjoyable on old CRT televisions instead of flat screens. From Meena Cartoon to Cocomelon, we all grew up, didn’t we?

We are so in with the new that we are slowly deviating away from our roots-the roots that helped us to become the person that we are today in the first place. I guess it is a bittersweet feeling, standing in my room on an 8th floor apartment complex i can’t help but yearn the old houses that we left behind. Houses that had a had a certain warmth to them, not just because of the way they were designed but the people who turned it into a home. The many windows, countless balconies and corridors, where neighbours would bump into each another, were a sure way of getting to know more people, to enjoy an evening well spent socialising and getting to know them over a cup of tea. The yearning to go back to such times, much happier times, is a feeling that is deeply rooted within me. It’s almost like existing without a soul- we exist, we survive yet we do not quite live as our heart is lost between pages of old books, photographs, traditions and music. Ultimately, the hasty transition to a digitalised world did not leave us enough time to mourn the loss of an entire generation that we so begrudgingly left behind. I guess i have made peace with the fact that i may quite never fit in today’s times and that’s okay- it's okay to continue reminiscing about the good old times; its okay to continue to find joy in vintage dresses and old pockets of time that have been buried deep under pages of history.  We may get called ‘old-fashioned’ along the way, but let's try to embrace it! Because as Robert A.Heinlein once said “ a generation which ignores history has no past and no future ” and so let’s not ignore the days we left behind in favour of the new ones as they hold an essence of ourselves that we may never truly get to replicate ever again. After all, a little bit of nostalgia never hurt anyone anyways!