I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

I am drippingly sentimental about anything that makes me yearn for my youth.

Old Sesame Street episodes, members only win breakers, in 1980s synth heavy

British bands, like loose ends, soul to soul, and new order.

In no way is this a complete list.

Back then, I blissfully saw the world through innocent eyes.

The complexities of the era were beyond my reach.

Like those wearing red hats signifying their longing for another age, I too embrace melancholy

and wistfulness.

Those are awesome feelings, feelings that make us feel socially connected and our authentic

selves.

But on the surface, mental travel to a quote unquote simpler time is a quick and narrow

journey.

It blocks out the larger context of our memories, or the less than perfect reality for other

people.

Often nostalgia can look like that woodblock key handed to us at the interstate red stop.

It opens a door, but the past is really a little room and kind of smelly, yet in our mind

exist as a golden age, one we urgently grasp for.

We hold on because, on many levels, we are in the midst of a sea change with strong winds.

Our current state of political grit lock in America is mostly a reaction to perceived

demographic shifts.

Nostalgia like what we see being weaponized today requires loss.

...