Editors’ Picks FUHSD Climate Collective hosts first Earth Day event pg. 3 Campus sustainability should not stop with students pg. 4 Chickens and ducks by Alicia and Felicia pg. 8 A historical reflection on America and communism pg. 12
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Softball keeps on swinging and lights up the field pg. 15
Volume 59 Issue 7 | April 29, 2024
Lynbrook High School, 1280 Johnson Ave., San Jose, CA 95129
where
past meets present A walk down lockdown lane: quarantine memories pg. 8 Sharing childhood stories to look back upon pg. 10 Nostalgia in media: walking the line between modernized and contrived pg. 11 The chemistry of nostalgia pg. 11
Nostalgia’s journey from disorder to emotion BY ANUSHKA ANAND AND APURVA KRISHNAMURTHY
H
ailing from the Greek words nostos, or homecoming, and algos, meaning longing, nostalgia offers us an opportunity to relive the past. Although it is generally accepted as an emotional phenomenon that brings about pleasant feelings, nostalgia was previously believed to be a psychiatric disorder, much less a warming experience. In the late 17th century, Johannes Hofer, a medical student at the University of Basel, noticed a strange illness affecting Swiss mercenaries serving abroad. He saw them struggle with fatigue, insomnia, irregular heartbeat, indigestion
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY VALERIE SHU
and fever, sometimes leading to death. The symptoms were so strong that soldiers were often discharged and sent home. Hofer later realized that the cause was an intense yearning for their mountain homeland in Switzerland. At first, nostalgia was considered to be an exclusively Swiss “affliction.” Doctors theorized that the constant sound of cowbells in the Alps caused trauma to the brain and eardrums. Because of the unfamiliarity of these feelings, people misidentified a combination of PTSD, neurosis and fatigue caused by the war as nostalgia. To avoid nostalgia, commanders forbade soldiers from singing traditional Swiss songs, fearing that they would experience
desertion or commit suicide. “It was ideal for a doctor to say that a nostalgic person is experiencing mental illness because it serves the interests of the nation that is at war,” said Steve Nava, chair of the sociology department at DeAnza College. “The classification is a justification for violence.” The 17th century was largely characterized by a culture of conformity; thus, many people were discouraged from confronting the status quo, especially leading figures, like scientists, who believed nostalgia was a disease. People didn’t think to question the phenomena due to the fear of standing out. story continues on pg. 9 || centerspread