OLD

This word can evoke so many feelings. There are many days when I really don’t look forward to getting old. So what is the value of old? We bought a property that had an old house and shed on it. The advice that we were given was to bulldoze the lot and start again. Yes, I agree there are times when this would be an appropriate strategy but I fear that sometimes it’s a tactic that is used way too often.

The bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” I realise that some people may have trouble believing this. We cannot have new technologies without them being based on old stuff.

In order to move forward we often have to come to terms and make peace with our past. My experience has been that my future can be made a little better by combining the old with it. Not everything old is “old hat” and we can learn a lot by revisiting history.

There are many people who would like to scrap outdated things and start over but everything has a connection to the past. If we dispose of the history of a society for instance we lose a lot of their lessons and knowledge that could be of great value to those trying to make their way in the world a hundred or so years from now.

So I believe that even if we consider history, regardless of it being personal, world or social, as being obsolete to us we must preserve it for the generations that are to come after us because they will probably find it more valuable that we do.