The Baby and the Bath Water
Call it a sense, call it a feeling, call it what you will.
Our ceaseless urge for novelty, that appears more prevalent with each arriving year and with every advance in technology, has as it’s bed-fellow a deep and unsettling sense of disquiet. An itch that never eases despite our fervent scratchings.
The new soon becomes the old.
New tech, new media, new horizons. Do they deliver greater contentment? Should we expect the outcomes to be inevitably beneficial?
Let’s tug at that thread. Should we, as we hurry through our quotidian lives, disregard the older, the well-tested, the less shiny? Are we just wired that way? As we travel forwards along our linear time-track, does the future demand the forgetting of the past?
Maybe the bright and glittering promises of more, better, faster outshine the lure of well worn, reliable, trustworthy. As the glow of the future burns brighter, is it any wonder that the luster of the past fades?
We must and do evolve, but not along straight lines. Two steps forward, one step to the left, a couple to the right. Like a shot-fuelled dancer tracing rhythms only he can hear.
Do you hear the quiet seldom-heard voices, echoes of footsteps that have walked this way before. Memories that don’t easily form into words. Messages from fellow travellers, from times now past, who learned how to survive on the road. The waystations to look out for, the perils that frequent the path, the storms to take shelter from.
When the appeal of the new encourages the dis-remembering of the old, do we risk the loss of these timeworn hand-holders?
Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater?
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The past rarely delivers bullet-pointed action plans. Detailed route maps of what to do when and how. The more specific the message, the more fragile it will prove to be. A reading between the lines or a full-pace backward, to gain perspective, are often required.
We easily mistake them for relics, these echoes from before. To be either hoarded like precious artefacts or discarded like yesterday’s tech. Burnished for display or tossed onto the scrap heap.
They might be found in songs or stories, dances or dinners. Ways of doing and ways of being. They may be found in our environments, both natural and built. They often hide in plain sight.
A local dish, prepared for generations, drifts from favour as newer delicacies arrive from further afield. Few noticed the gradual diminishing of the fish that used to fill local bellies. It told for aeons of the health of the river and the surrounding fields. It’s abundance spoke of a general wellbeing, its unheralded decline whispered of dirty water, boiling skies, a general sickening. The quiet canary in the mine.
The gatherings of communities as old as the hills, who stood together in time, place and mind. The re-membered relationships and the still-sung songs. Shared food, shared stories and a shared sense of who and where we are. Our tribes now insubstantial, wax and wane with the prevailing breeze. Small wonder when we confuse a strap line for the message.
Buildings hewn from the terroir round and about, still stand, like sentries after centuries. Their peaceful endurance tells of what will thrive here and what will fail. New endeavours bring the glass and steel icons of today, but will they tell in a thousand years of our continued cohabitations?
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Walk out and take in the air, then pause a while and reflect.
The clues are there to be decoded for those willing to take the time. No instant gratification, no click and collect, no dopamine hit. Gentle reminders and long-trusted signs.
Things that should never be forgotten will slip from our minds. They were formed over ages, but can vanish in a breath.
Take care of the baby when the bathing is done.