Greetings my friends. I hope you’re enjoying October as much as I am. I adore all the -ember and -ober months. As seasons go, this is my happy space. It’s a great time to reflect, and a great time to reset.

Creatively speaking, this song caused a peculiar reaction I wasn’t expecting; enough to make it the topic for my liner notes. The reaction was... nostalgia. The world instruments made me pine for the experiences of my Scottish (clan Mackay) ancestors. And some of my other synth choices sparked happy feelings of being a teenager in the 80s.

Even now, I’m strangely comforted by this song (a sort of mother’s love/lullaby effect). It makes me yearn for what I imagine to be easier, simpler times… and I couldn’t be more wrong.

I know my Scottish ancestors had quite a brutal and destructive history. And if I’m really being honest with myself, I never expected to survive the Cold War in the 80s. In fact, I actually adopted a very dystopian view of the world because of it. So why do I (or any of us) have such a strong desire to return to ‘the good old days’, when almost all evidence points to those times being worse for the majority of us?

I’m reading a book right now that puts all of this into sharp perspective. It’s called ‘Enlightenment Now’ (by Steven Pinker); and it has less to do with being enlightened, and more to do with using reasoning to help us rummage through the inaccuracies stored in our minds. I’ll be the first to admit… I struggle with a lot of the concepts (because my ego loves the drama of believing it’s all going to hell). But truthfully, we have never seen a time when so many people were experiencing such a decent quality of life, and Steven has the analytics to prove it. For example:

On the topic of life…. The average human lifespan is now 71.4 years. In the 1700s it was 35.

On the topic of sustenance… Premodern Europe suffered famines every few decades. The typical diet in France in the 1700s was comparable to Rwanda in 1965 (the most malnourished nation for that year). Today, India’s billion people get an average of 2,400 calories a day. Hunger hasn’t disappeared entirely. But it’s nothing like what our ancestors experienced.

On the topic of wealth… the average preindustrial European was fortunate to own a quality garment only a few times in their lives. And it was not uncommon for clothing to be stolen off a dead body during an epidemic… thus continuing to spread the epidemic. Now we have to store our winter clothes to make room in the closet for our summer attire. And we order these items on our smart phones, to be delivered tomorrow.

On the topic of equal rights… Consider Michelle Obama’s quote from the 2016 National Democratic Convention, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent black young women, playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.” That is a hopeful indicator of how far we’ve come toward achieving racial equality. And there are people still alive today who were born before women had the right to vote. Now women can run for President. Another great indicator we are heading in the right direction. We definitely have a long way to go. But again, it is much better than it was.

These are some of the simplest examples pulled from the book. If you need a booster shot of positivity, I highly recommend it. It’s one of the best researched, most logically presented perspectives I’ve encountered in a while; and it is unapologetically hopeful. It reminds us… the ‘good old days’ weren’t really that good; and the best days are now. So let’s focus on what we need to do next, and maybe park those fond (but faulty) memories.

I hope you enjoyed my latest musical offering, ‘Nostalgia’. :)