RE: Memories and "Good Old Days" - We Go Forward, Because We Can't Go Back!
I'm not very nostalgic, to say the least.(that's an understatement if ever there was one.)
Truth be told I hate going back (either mentally of physically). Being a traveler for so many years, I have returned to places, and to people a few times...
....and it's always leaves me with a feeling of 'disappointing'.
So now I don't. Simple.
Leave good memories to look back at, and to relive, even - exactly where they deserve to be - in your memory.
Trying to 'relive' a time gone by, seems to, somehow, always 'sour' the original experience. The memory.
I see life as a one way train journey with no getting off, and no passing the same station twice....
(It's up to each person to decide what class of carriage they choose to sit in).
Accepting that as a reality can save of lot of disappointments, avoid a lot of wasted time, and it opens your life to a lot of new experiences, instead...
I've moved well beyond wanting to "go back" to the past, although I do write about it... mostly to warn others that it can be a trap.
The past, however, is useful in the sense that it invites me to take a more objective look at the present whenever I feel like there is something missing... and I am casting glances backwards to try to understand what it is.
Because the actual past is invariably disappointing, as you say.