…..it tells only half-truths. And thus the full truth isn’t as fragrant as my wistful reminiscence. Most of those skyscrapers are abandoned. The cornfields are subsumed by cookie-cutter suburbia. And the house that raised me is boarded up after decades of disrepair.

Nostalgia is a rose-colored rearview. Not only does it falsely represent the past, keeping us clinging to a two-dimensional version of life that didn’t actually exist, it dampens the present and clouds the future.

Photo: Helsinki 2017. Made with Fuji x100F and converted to B&W using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro