There are so many of us who have had the gift, the pleasure, the blessing of experiencing a world without technology saturating every corner of it, a world where being outside was not an activity but a default, where interaction was not scheduled or filtered but lived, where presence was not something to reclaim but something we simply were, and we carry that within us, whether we speak about it or not, whether we admit it or not, whether we have made peace with it or not.

And yet—

So many of us are nostalgic.

We speak about those times like they are gone, like they belong to another reality, like something we cannot access anymore, and nostalgia in itself is a strange feeling, because it is not just memory, it is not just recollection, it is distance, emotional distance from something that once was close enough to be lived without effort.

So the question is not just what do we miss—

But why does it feel so far?

What is it about our childhoods, about those early experiences, that we have not fully integrated, not fully accepted, not fully reconciled with, that turns them into something we long for instead of something we carry with us?

Because when something is truly integrated, it does not become nostalgia.

It becomes foundation.

It becomes something you live from, not something you look back at.

And this is where it becomes uncomfortable, because many of the same individuals who had the privilege of experiencing life without technology, who know what it feels like to be outside, to be present, to be in direct relationship with life and with others, are the very same individuals who have adopted, submitted to, and normalised a way of living that moves us further away from that.

Not because they are unaware of the difference—

But because something within them never fully made peace with what was.

And so instead of safeguarding it, instead of protecting it, instead of advocating for it, they conformed.

They moved with the current.

They accepted the shift.

And in doing so, they are not just changing their own lives—

They are shaping what the next generation will experience as “normal.”

Teaching, not always through words but through behaviour, that it is okay to grow up without what once felt natural, what once felt grounding, what once felt alive.

And maybe—

Just maybe—

Part of the reason this happens is because not everyone felt like their childhood was good enough to protect.

Because when your memory of something is mixed with pain, with confusion, with unresolved experiences, you do not always fight to preserve it.

You move forward.

You replace it.

You detach from it.

But what gets lost in that is the ability to distinguish between what was harmful and what was nourishing.

Because yes, the past was not perfect.

If it were, we would not be here.

But that does not mean everything in it was disposable.

And what we are facing now is not just the loss of certain experiences, but the addition of layers that were never designed to serve us fully—systems of technology that act not just as tools, but as environments, as mediators of reality, as filters through which life is experienced rather than directly lived.

Before, maybe the problem was limited to our immediate environments, to our households, to our parents.

Now—

We are dealing with something much broader.

A system.

An ecosystem.

A presence that influences attention, behaviour, identity, connection.

And yet—

We are not advocating strongly enough for what we know felt better.

Not in theory.

Not in practice.

Not in consistency.

So this is not a call to go backwards.

Not a romanticisation of “the good old days” as if they were flawless.

But a call to remember accurately.

To extract what worked.

To bring forward what nourished.

To consciously choose to reintroduce what supported our aliveness.

Because it is hard to believe—truly hard to believe—that we would consciously choose a life more mediated, more filtered, more distant over one that allows us to be fully present with each other, fully engaged with life, fully connected in ways that do not require a screen to exist.

And so to those who have lived it—

To those who remember what it felt like—

I don’t know what happened to you.

I don’t know what made you let go of it so quietly.

But we need you.

Not to reminisce.

Not to post about it occasionally.

But to speak clearly, consistently, actively about what was real in it.

Because memory alone is not enough.

Nostalgia alone is not enough.

We need advocacy.

We need embodiment.

We need people who do not just miss what was—

But who are willing to bring it back into what is.

Because if we don’t—

Then the distance will grow.

And what was once lived will become something that future generations can only imagine.

And that—

That would be a loss far greater than we are willing to admit.

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Hey ChatGPT, I wanna write a piece about how so many of us have had the gift, the pleasure, the blessing, the opportunity to experience a world without technology where we would actually interact with each other and be outside and be one with life, right? And so many of us are also so nostalgic about these times and periods, but when you look at nostalgia, nostalgia is this feeling of something that you feel disconnected from. But the question is, why do they feel disconnected from their childhood? What is it about their childhood that they’re not necessarily, that they haven’t accepted, that they haven’t made peace with, that they haven’t necessarily reconciled with, that they haven’t necessarily deeply experienced in a way that allows them to carry true memories of their past without the emotional attachment of whatever the circumstance might have been in their upbringing. And that’s because when you look at… These days in technology use, the majority of the individuals that use it and have adopted it and have succumbed to it and submitted to it are individuals that had the pleasure of experiencing what it felt like and what it looks like to not have it. Yet instead of safeguarding it, instead of appreciating the blessings, instead of advocating for it, they just conform. And in conforming, they’re now not just teaching the next generations that it is okay to not have a childhood like they did, and majority of the reason as to why they might not even see how important that little change is, it’s probably because they don’t feel like they had a good childhood, a good enough childhood, but they’re not even aware enough to compare it to the fact that it was different things. Maybe before we had the problem of just our parents being the problem, now we have a parent system, the technology, we have so many things that aren’t necessarily working in our favor by design, and we are not necessarily advocating for the times and for the specific things that we know made things better for our souls. So to all of those who had the pleasure of experiencing life without technology, I don’t know what happened to you, but we need you to speak up more about your experience, because it’s impossible to believe that we would rather live in technology than live in person with each other in loving ways, in… Open ways, transparent ways on its ways, I refuse to believe that that’s the life that we’re gonna be living. And I wanna genuinely believe that people will wake up at some point and advocate the, not just in theory, the good old days, but because it’s not about going back in time, there’s a lot of things that of those times that weren’t perfect, because if not, we wouldn’t be here. But it’s important that we do bring back the things that did do good to us.

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I might be an and insult everyone’s existence, but it is because I’m holding the mirror to that signal. Nothing is by chance. If other don’t catch my signal, it’s only because it’s painful to see the signal you put out before you’re ready to accept it.