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The following is an excerpt from Mostly Void, Partially Stars by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.

I chose this passage because I feel that it perfectly encapsulates the feeling of nostalgia;

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we look back on our memories solemnly, not fully cherished in the moment,

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but remembered dearly when they are long past.

Here's the truth of nostalgia: we don't feel it for who we were but who we weren't,

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we feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us but that we didn't take.

Time is like wax dripping from a candle flame. In the moment it is molten and falling with the capability

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to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes

and the wax hits the table top and solidifies into the shape it will always be;

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it becomes the past, a solid single record of what happened still holding in its wild curves and

contours the potential of every shape it could have held.

It is impossible no matter how blessed you are by luck or the government

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or some remote invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind,

it is impossible not to feel a little sad looking at that bit of wax;

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that bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take.