Is Nostalgia Killing Our Growth?

 Lately, I’ve been wondering… is nostalgia quietly killing the culture? Are we so focused on looking back that we forget to fully exist in the present? I love and respect my ancestors, I really do—but sometimes it feels like “ancestral veneration” gets used as a tool to keep us locked into the past. We hold on to traditions that were passed down through people who, let’s be honest, often passed down cycles that need to be broken.

Even when we talk about the so-called “Gods,” I have to question… if they were truly all-powerful, wouldn’t they still be here? Wouldn’t we see more evidence of their evolution, not just their stories?

The more I study and experience life, the more I realize—there really isn’t much that’s new. Music is sampling older generations. Pop culture thrives on throwbacks and ‘90s baby nostalgia. It’s like we’re stuck in a loop, where “learning from the past” has become an excuse to stay trapped in it.

Think about it… in school, we learned about slavery, not to unify us, but to divide us and weigh us down. I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist—it absolutely does—but as a kid, I made friends with everyone. Color wasn’t a thing until the world made it a thing. I didn’t start fearing police or feeling “different” until I was taught to. I remember my mom telling me, “You already got one strike because you’re Black—so you have to be twice as good just to get half as far.” That’s an enormous amount of pressure to carry before you even figure out who you are.

Then there’s religion. We were taught to fear an anti-Christ because a group of people wrote a book centuries ago and labeled it the unquestionable “word of God.” Meanwhile, there’s endless proof of civilizations, spiritual systems, and cultures that predated or existed alongside those narratives. Yet people cling to ancient texts and judge the present based on relics of the past.

No disrespect to anyone’s faith, but I find it strange that we believe a universal Creator—who supposedly governs the vastness of existence—is fixated on a tiny rock floating in an infinite cosmos. Why do we assume that the full truth of existence is contained in one book, one story, or one culture?

I’m realizing how much we stay chained to the past—romanticizing it, fearing it, or feeling like we have to live up to it. And because of that, we forget the present moment. We forget we’re allowed to grow, to evolve, to make mistakes. We forget that this world is finite, imperfect, and just one layer of a much bigger mystery.

I keep asking myself—what would life feel like if we just embraced the present? If we honored the past but didn’t live in it? Maybe that’s where true freedom starts… and maybe it starts with me.