Nostalgia as a Coping Mechanism

Nostalgia as a Coping Mechanism continues after this notice…

If 2016 Was Normal, Then 2026 Is Normal Too!

Sunday lunch and the strange nostalgia for 2016

Sunday, my good friend Wendy came over for lunch. It was the kind of relaxed catch up you hope for after the festive season. And for the most part, we actually managed to enjoy our conversation without geopolitics being brought up… or swallowing the whole table.

I say that while also quietly dying inside, desperate to blurt out, “W.T.F?!” about recent global events.

But I didn’t. I somehow managed to sit back and soften into the ordinary ins and outs of our lives.

Until the conversation turned, as it often does lately, to people reminiscing about recent years being so good, compared to now.

“

I keep getting this feeling like nostalgia is part of how we cope.

Gregg the Artivist

Wendy told me she had recently had a conversation where someone had said, with real nostalgia, that 2016 was a great year. 2016?!

She sat there trying to figure out what they meant. After all, Trump got his first term, there was Brexit, and David Bowie died… what exactly was so great about 2016 compared to now?

Later, out of curiosity, I looked up a list of the major events of that year. Alongside Trump, Brexit, and Bowie, it included the Syria conflict intensifying, major terror attacks in Orlando, Brussels, Nice and Istanbul, the Zika virus spreading globally, the hottest year on record, and then, just to round it out, my musical hero Prince, died too.

Wendy and I were baffled. Is it an age thing? (Her friend was a younger adult). Is it selective memory? Do people genuinely experience the recent past as being that different to the present?

And it brought me back to something I’ve been noticing for a while now.

Nostalgia as a coping mechanism

I’ve been watching people try and hold it together while the world around us is clearly shifting, and I keep getting this feeling like nostalgia is part of how we cope. It's like it softens the complexity of the real situation, so we get this level of comfort, not because it was better, but just to give us a place to rest our good memories.

And it leaves me feeling like I’m being pulled in three directions by three very different groups of people.

---

Group one: the Fantasisers

They are aware. They are concerned. They know something is wrong. And yet they act, almost religiously, as if following the rules, keeping their head down, and getting on with the tasks at hand will somehow bring everything back to “normal”. Whatever “normal” even means.

What scares me most in this group, is the way people talk about “before 2020” like it was a stable baseline, like we had a world that made sense and then it was suddenly taken from us. I hear it constantly: everything changed since 2020, nothing is normal anymore.

I’m not judging. We all need coping mechanisms. But I do wonder how much of that fantasy is truly theirs, and how much of it is being fed to them.

Group two: the Inside Crowd

These are the people inside the bubble. The NGO, nonprofit, humanitarian, aid, peace and justice world.

And yes, there are exceptions. But broadly, what I see is not what outsiders imagine.

I see a misfit bunch of good hearted people. Hard working. Underpaid. Living on the edge of burnout. Highly committed. Under supported. Under financed. Facing the horrors of the world face on. Trying to make a better world for all life, while being trapped inside the very system that limits what they can change.

That’s not to say nothing gets achieved. Of course it does. There is so much to praise. But so often it feels like a small token of what is actually needed, and what is actually possible due to the system limitations.

Which is why the same conversations keep resurfacing. The same problems. The same cycles. The same sense that, at times, we are walking in circles while telling ourselves we are moving forward.

Group three: the Self Protectors

These are the people who seem almost entirely untouched by what’s happening beyond their immediate bubble. And if an uncomfortable topic does reach them, they have this uncanny ability to dismiss it as nonsense, or overblown, or not their problem, and return to their day without a second thought.

---

So what are we building on purpose

And here’s the part I don’t love admitting. I feel a kind of envy for all three groups.

Because I’m stuck in the middle, trying to figure out where I belong. Or better still, trying to imagine a different camp altogether. One that can hold the awareness of the Inside Crowd, the steadiness of the Fantasisers, and the calm of the Self Protectors, without collapsing into denial or numbness.

A camp that dreams of a better life for all, and has the vision and discipline to actually build it.

“

Maybe the point is not to get back to normal. Maybe the point is to build a new kind of normal on purpose.

Gregg the Artivist

Because I do believe this, deeply.

Without dreams, without imagination, what is even the point of moving forward? (TIP: Read my article What Happened to Imagination). But also, having a dream without the discipline to realise it is like knowing you need fire extinguishers while you watch the house burn down.

I feel like the world is asking a lot from all of us right now. But mostly, it’s asking us to get honest.

What are we being fed?

Where is our attention going? (TIP: Read my article attention is political)

And through our choices, our time, and our energy, what are we actually supporting?

I find myself asking, again and again: what are you trying to build, Gregg? And I’m trying to ground myself in the present, so the choices I make are honest responses to the reality we’re in now. Not a performance based on nostalgia. Not a fantasy that we’re going back to a time that probably never existed in the way we remember it anyway.

The past is the past. That time is gone.

I know there is so much complexity in all of this, more than I can really get into while I am still working through it as I write. And I am starting to understand why people prefer false certainty over true complexity, which is probably a topic for another article. But I do hope that in 2026 I find the camp I am looking for. I hope we all do.

Back to Sunday lunch, as Wendy and I questioned this curious nostalgia for 2016, I just kept thinking: if 2016 counts as normal, then 2026 is normal too. And frankly, maybe the point is not to get back to normal. Maybe the point is to build a new kind of normal, on purpose. (TIP: Read my article Choosing what builds life)

Further Reading:

I found these articles that you might also find interesting on the impacts of nostalgia.

• The Guardian on nostalgia as a complex, sometimes dangerous emotion - Frames nostalgia as more than harmless longing, and links it to how people navigate change and uncertainty.
• BBC Science Focus on anemoia and why we long for a time we never lived - Why nostalgia can soothe, and why it shows up when the present feels unstable.

---

FAQs - Nostalgia as a coping mechanism

---

Want to reprint or collaborate on written work about Climate/Environmental or Social Justice Storytelling?

I welcome inquiries for republishing, co-writing, guest contributions, and creative collaborations rooted in justice, systems, and story. Reach out if my work resonates. Contact Me