the hypochondria of the heart

Nostalgia (from nostos -- return home, and algia -- longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has ever existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one's own fantasy. Nostalgic love can only survive in a long-distance relationship. A cinematic image of nostalgia is a double exposure, or a superimposition of two images -- of home and abroad, past and present, dream and everyday life.
In the seventeenth century, nostalgia was considered to be a curable disease, akin to the common cold ... By the twenty-first century, the passing ailment turned into the incurable modern condition.
The ambivalent sentiment permeates twentieth-century popular culture, where technological advances and special effects are frequently used to recreate visions of the past, from the sinking Titanic to dying gladiators and extinct dinosaurs. ... In counterpoint to our fascination with cyberspace and the virtual global village, there is no less global epidemic of nostalgia, an affective yearning for a community with a collective memory, a longing for continuity in a fragmented world. Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.
At first glance, nostalgia is a longing for a place, but actually it is a yearning for a different time -- the time of our childhood, the slower rhythms of our dreams. In a broader sense, nostalgia is a rebellion against the modern idea of time, the time of history and progress. ... It is the promise to rebuikld the ideal home that lies at the core of many powerful ideologies of today, tempting us to relinquish critical thinking for emotional bonding. The danger of nostalgia is that it tends to confuse the actual home and the imaginary one. In extreme cases it can create a phantom homeland, for the sake of which one is ready to die or kill. ... Nostalgia is not merely an expression of local longing, but a result of a new understanding of time and space that made the division into 'local' and 'universal' possible.