The Case for Rewatching, Revisiting, Repeating
At 28, I don’t encounter novelty the way I once did. In my early twenties, everything seemed new — ideas, places, adventures. Now the stream feels thinner. Without the jolt of discovery, I feel the pull toward nostalgia, the whisper that maybe the best days are already behind me.
Travel makes me wrestle with this most directly. I’ve been to Tokyo twice, and even though the city amazed me both times, the second visit carried a shadow. Wonder was there, but so was the aftertaste: you’ll never feel this way again. Instead of simply enjoying the moment, I found myself comparing it to the first trip, as if the repeat were a diluted copy. And underneath that, another question lingered: could I be doing something better with my time and money than being here again? Almost as if repeating the experience was indulgent, even wasteful.
That’s the trap of nostalgia and guilt combined. Nostalgia turns repetition into loss, and guilt turns it into waste. Together they whisper that once you’ve tasted something at its best, every return will not only disappoint but also cost you. And yet, if I give in to that way of thinking, I cut myself off from the richness that comes from returning, from repeating, from choosing something not just once but again and again.
It’s like cooking. Sometimes a meal turns out so perfectly you know you’ll never replicate it. The temptation is to stop trying — to preserve the memory instead of risking disappointment. But that would mean missing the chance for other good meals, even if they’re different. Novelty is sugar; it thrills and fades. Consistency is what builds substance.
But that doesn’t mean avoiding the fleeting. I don’t stop cooking for enjoyment just because I know the taste will pass. Part of growing up — part of living fully — is allowing myself those one-off experiences, knowing they won’t last, but choosing to enjoy them anyway.
I thought about this last week at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, where they screened Top Gun with a live orchestra. I’ve seen the film five times now — with my dad, with a friend, at a drive-in with my wife, at IMAX with her parents, and now here, with thousands of strangers.
The man beside me, in his late fifties, told me the original Top Gun was his favourite film. His ringtone was “Danger Zone.” He swore he’d seen it 500 times. And yet, despite Top Gun: Maverick being out for years, he had avoided it — afraid the sequel would somehow spoil what he already loved. For me, it was different: I’d never even seen the original. We came from opposite directions — him guarding the past, me with no past to guard — and yet both of us walked out with more to love.
He was discovering; I was… cherishing. That’s new.
And it made me realise something: I hadn’t gone to Top Gun: Maverick five times for novelty. I told myself I had — a different cinema, a different group, a different setting. But the truth is, I went back for the same emotional moments I knew were coming, the scenes that landed the same every time. I went to share them with different people, to feel that wave of collective awe, to let repetition become something I cherished.
It was repetition — mostly the old, with just enough new. And sitting there with that man, watching him discover what I had loved, made me appreciate the movie all the more. By chasing only new things, I’d avoided the risk of association. But that night I realised: I wasn’t just a spectator passing through; I was a part of it. I am a Top Gun fan too.
Maybe the point is both: to welcome the one-off moments fully, without mourning them before they’ve even passed, and to return without shame to the things I already love. Novelty makes life vivid; repetition gives it depth.
When I let myself repeat, it isn’t a faded copy of the first time. It’s a way of saying this matters enough to choose again. Repetition is ownership — a quiet affirmation of who I’m becoming.
And when nostalgia or guilt creep in — the fear that time is slipping away or that I should have spent it better — that’s where the work begins. I need to prune those thoughts, not let them root. To replace them with gratitude for the one-offs, and appreciation for the familiar, even without knowing what the future holds. That’s how to avoid cynicism: tending my thoughts like a gardener, making space for gratitude, belonging, and meaning to grow in both the new and the familiar.
That man beside me discovered; I cherished. Both were true, both were good. And that’s the life I want to practice: to live openly in discovery, and to let repetition be a gift — not something less, but another way to taste life fully