The past was not that cute

I will pre-empt this by saying I most certainly look to the past with rose colored glasses, and some of this is for sure childhood nostalgia, but one thing I appreciate about the aesthetics of the past is they felt more… Honest; for lack of a better term. Things made out of wood and metal were actually made out of hardwood and metal. Not so many composites that fall apart instead of wear ala wabi-sabi. So I think there’s something to the fact that the past was kind of “cute”, just not in all storybook way.

Theres a lake I visit in the summer that I’ve been visiting since the 80’s, and the houses used to all be wood cottages with no fences, now they’re all mansions, many walled off. Sure the houses weren’t insulated, and you would be crammed in there together, but it felt way more…. Human? Communal?

I wonder why it is that the past seems more real and the present dishonest and fake? Is it simply that it is?

I mean - to one extent, concretely in the aesthetic ways I’m talking it was technologically we just had simpler materials. Cars had knobs and levers instead of touchscreens.

Like, so much of what I do today happens online instead of the real world, so I do think you can describe ways in which life or the world really has gotten more “fake”.

Though some of this is funny too? I remember things from the say 50’s to the 80’w as being more “real” and that’s also the like rise of TV dinners and everything eaten out of a can, rather than “real” ingredients.