On Nostalgia, Junk, and the Future
I recently went through my old Boy Scout stuff. The sash, above, is my own. According to records I still have I earned my Eagle Scout Badge, and ended by Boy Scout journey, in November of 1997. Twenty-eight years ago. So, why do I still have the sash? Why do I still have my boy scout shirt? Why does the my Boy Scout handbook sit on a bookshelf right next to me? Why until this year did I still have a pair of boy scout pants and socks?
I didn't know. Maybe I still don't know. I have some thoughts and maybe if I spend enough time with them they'll harden into reasons? I know that I couldn't throw the sash, the shirt, and other memorabilia away, yet. While holding that thought I also know that these objects mean nothing to my children. That when I am gone all these things will only be a burden to them. A burden to be thrown away. Junk to move through as they process my death. Perhaps that process will help shape and channel the grief? I don't know. It could. Though, when I witnessed my aunts and uncles doing the same after the death of my grandmother I found the spectacle macabre.
They have no relationship with Boy Scouts of America. They don't know what any of those colorful badges represent. That is true as well for my collection of old Nintendo and PC games. Still preserved in their boxes with instruction manuals and 'feelies.' These items are stand-ins for my many memories of playing with friends at the Scout House, camping trips, and stories told around fires. For early weekend mornings in front of the CRT with my brother and sister passing the controller back and forth or sitting in front of the family computer pecking keys trying to make my way through a Sierra adventure game. For me these items are totemic. For my kids it is junk.
But part of me thinks that no, these things are not junk! My children will cherish them. I needs only these items with them and they too will love them. But no, this is an error, perhaps made more common by consumerism? By the endless pursuit of things as a replacement for everything else. I have confused the symbol for the symbolized. My children do not need my boy scout uniform or any of my old merit badges. They don't need a complete-in-box copy of Castlevania. They need to have those experiences and memories in their own lives. The best way I can do that is not by filling my house with stuff that makes me nostalgic but by facilitating great experiences in their own lives. Helping them see that it is not the symbols that matter but the symbolized.