Nostos and Algos

Nostalgia as a word traces its etymological origins to (nostos) homecoming and (algos) pain. Interestingly, some computer scientists believe that the word 'algorithm' is derived from 'algos' as well! :)

Nostalgia is a strange thing. It was in fact first thought of as a medical condition. Some think of it as a vague, distant and alien emotion. Some romanticize it to such an extent that it nauseates you. My personal view (as for a vast majority of people I guess) is that it is a dirac function - mostly non-existent, but suddenly it comes and shoots up and then everything is normal again. And as you get older, it gets easier to drown in one of these bouts!

My most recent bout was when I saw two amazing photo sets one on India and one on my old school. Although it is too biased towards the current events in the country (more precisely in the Northern heartland), some photos are still breathtaking. Don't miss to check out the one with the majestic Royal Bengal Tiger! And the pictures from my school where I studied for 12 years evoke nothing but warm and fuzzy feelings and remind me of the time when my biggest worries were when I will go out and play and what would Mom make me for dinner!

Sometimes it is funny as how when you are in the present - I mean actually experiencing a situation - and think that you would eventually feel nostalgic about it! Sometimes even the bad memories can become a source of nostalgia. This is what I don't understand. Is this the case of the spectatorial axiom: distance automatically brings perspective? May be those situations weren't that bad after all? Or one is subconsciously trying to suppress the bad parts and trying to remember the good ones? Or as Franklin Adams once simply put, "Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory"!

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Have a meeting in < 2 hours (am I the only one to have Friday 4:30pm. meetings?), so later!

Update: The meeting was a short one thankfully - otherwise I was on the verge of stealing some winks! I guess having a DB group get-together immediately after helped :)