Defining "Nostalgia"

The other day, I engaged in a conversation of nostalgic enormity. It made me think of a book I read around this time last year titled "Nothing Feels Good: The Evolution of Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo." It's actually quite an excellent book and it quoted the lyrics of a really terrible emo band of the 80s called Rites of Spring. In on of their songs, the innitial lyrics read:

Caught in time so far away from where our hearts really wanted to be - Reaching out to find a way to get back to where we'd been.

The book said this was the definition of "Nostalgia" and after reading it over and over again, it forcibly burrowed in my heart until I understood. You are one of the few people who can still bring about this nostalgia... this longing for where we've been (though in this case, it's a longing for a place we've never been).

Life is so fleeting. All experiences, all joys, all sorrows only last for a fraction of an instant. And after that, they exist only as memories. And anyway, our memories are nothing but vagrant thought in the empty expanse of whatever lays before us. There is no real tangibility and no solidity to anything in our lives, but perhaps I am being as depressing and emo as that stupid song.

It's amazing, the amount of books and passages that have strongly affected my life. There was one from a book called "Killing Yourself to Live" (which I highly recommend) but I don't remember it anymore since I didn't write it down). Another is called "The Reluctant Metrosexual" from which I derive the following passage.

"The initial manifestation of a broken heart is physical. Your heart literally hurts. The mouth gets dry, the gut goes hallow, and it feels as though you've had the wind knocked out of you. Your eyes cannot focus long enough to read or watch television. Sleep brings no relief either, particularly if the person you are thinking of is still present in your bedroom--her sent, her hair bands, the imprint of her body on the mattress. The best you can manage is to lie there, on sweat-soaked sheets, imprisoned by your past.

But there is also perverse, self-absorbed pleasure that comes with heartbreak. It's what Kurt Cobain meant when he sang, "I miss the comfort of being sad." Heartbreak gave me an excuse to indulge in behavior that the world generally deems mildly antisocial-- retreating into my head; listening to Bob Dylan songs over and over, in search of hidden meanings; sitting in front of a computer screen, bandaging the frayed pieces of my life under the misguided premise that I could actually fuse them back together again..."

I suppose that's one thing nostalgia does to you... But remind me again... what was the point of this post?