Old Things

2-14-10

I like old things. I like tracing my family's genealogy, I enjoy archaeology and the findings that ensue (which is one reason that I wish I would be going on the dig this summer, but I'll be enjoying camp instead), I like studying history and finding how it applies to life today, and I like old books.

Yes, I said. I like old books. Sometimes, the older the better. Now, some of it I do find dreadfully dull, but I found delight in Paradise Lost and in Pride and Prejudice. Dickens has a dry wit that I find amusing; Melville, though long-winded, still has something to say that speaks to this day. Byron had a horrible life (to which he admitted), but he sure wrote some great poetry. Chaucer created the way of rhyming in English, and Shakespeare understood (or at least wondered about) how humans think and then wrote about it in iambic pentameter (mostly). T.S. Eliot has wonderful imagery, even if I'm not always sure what he's getting at (and even if sometimes I get annoyed at Prufrock for not living his life and instead measuring it out in coffee spoons).

Just because something is old does not mean that it does not have worth. Old beliefs (which may or may not have validity, I'm not commenting on that) still shaped the societies they were believed in, and I think an understanding of the past is crucial to understanding the future. It's one reason why I like the speculative fiction works of Orson Scott Card. He takes the past and weaves it into a narrative of the future, all the while commenting on the present. The original Star Trek series did that, too. Just because something (a belief, an idea, a way of life) is old does not mean it is irrelevant. Just because something is old does not mean that modern society must be hostile to it.

To be completely honest, I find that most of the modern writing I have read to be painfully boring and difficult to read. Not all of it, and some of it is quite great writing and deserves to be studied. It's just not my favorite. So, I'm not claiming that everything in the past was the best--far from it--but I'm also not saying that modern stuff sucks. I'm just stating that I think that old stuff is not irrelevant to today.

For why should I read about what I know life currently to be, when I can read about how it was, or how someone thinks it may be? I find the existential ponderings in many writings to be overly whiny, and I get frustrated with how the characters think and act. If there's no point to a person's life, why don't they go find a point? Stop sitting around and actually do something. Stop measuring life in coffee spoons and actually start living.

I would rather believe in a fantasy than exist in nothingness (and I think that a majority of people would agree with me; look at how popular speculative fiction and fantasy books and movies are). I allude to the sage Puddleglum when I paraphrase that I'd rather believe in a fantasy that seems real than a reality that strikes me as false. I think humans want there to be a point to life, and, if nothing else, old stuff gives a window back to a time when people actually thought there was a point. I like old stuff, and I find relevancies in that old stuff, so I will defend the reading of and the love of that old stuff.

~Ashlee