The unobtrusive charm of nostalgia

by Roberto Sironi

The etymology of the word “nostalgia” leads us into an enigma deriving from the union of two words of Greek origin: nostos, “return home” and algos “pain” which together become “the pain of returning.” So does nostalgia have enigmatic and perhaps unresolved roots?

What could be hidden behind or inside this state of mind that has turned regret into a sad thought, as is the tango in its enthralling, enthralling and passionate fatality?

An enigma is by induction a concept linked or rather enveloped in an arcane, intimately embraced by a secret, an enigma always has its solution, when one exists, in an unknown esoteric and initiatory mystery which clearly and manifestly gives, and I apologize for the play on words, a sense to a nonsense that would have liked to make sense!

And here is “the pain of returning?”

But what really is this pain that would seem to have the “return” as its only goal?

And to return where?

Could this anomalous pain be a psychological state, a feeling of sadness and regret for the distance from dear people or places or for an event we would like to relive, so could it be a return to the past? Or it could also be, on the contrary, a “return to pain”, that is, to an “existential goal” that has changed its natural purpose, the ultimate destination of an idea, to reunite through pain with the life one would have wanted and that we never searched for or found?