Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

“Old is truer and better.” Oh, really!

In our human affairs of late, there are no paper records anymore. Computers are used in all aspects of running our lives. Old books use languages that are passé and difficult to understand. Not only that but also, everything about them seems to have changed.

Now is that so bad?

I still use pencil and paper sometimes, but I write better on the computer and I am so happy word processing has been invented. It had taken me months, several decades ago, to put up an index for a book, using three by five cards and several notebooks. Nowadays, I can do the same thing in a few hours with the proper computer program.

I am an oldie, but I couldn’t do without my computer and I always view the newest things or ideas with a welcoming attitude. Maybe because of that, whenever someone tells me old was better, depending on what they are talking about, I sometimes wonder about their minds.

For example, when somebody points to a hundred fifty year-old book, telling me what it says about style, syntax, and definitions of literary terms are truer than what we have today, his or her words scare me. For one simple reason: according to linguists, language is a living thing; therefore, it changes. Together with the language, other things also change.

True, there are some good, old things. Old wines for instance and antique knick knacks, maybe. The idea that we have old as history is good, because history is a witness that we have lived, and that is what old is: history and just that.

There is so much to be built and maintained in our lives. What we build must last for a long time without total rebuilding. This requires new thinking and new ways of organizing development. So the new comes up with better and more workable things, ideas, and institutions.

I should know about the old. I lived through old times, old assessments, and old prejudices. One of the good things I found about old is that old cannot control the new and the new has to take over the old. That I found to be the best thing about the old.

All this because someone quoted from a very old book, telling me the info in it was "truer."