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I know little about Henry David Thoreau beyond the most basic biographical information (not ever having read Walden, though I admire it immensely in my ignorance). Despite my admiration, I take offense at these words of his that I recently came across: "What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new."
Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute, Mr. Thoreau. I am overly sensitive to the "o" word; I'll admit that freely. And I will also point out that things have changed since your day. There was once a time when the forward momentum was a gentle stroll instead of today's NASCAR race. There was a need, perhaps, to remind the "old" to stand back and allow new ideas to flourish.
But today's society, in its unholy haste to be first with the new, has thrown the baby (old knowledge) out with the bathwater. If it isn't new, we say, it isn't worth having/knowing/learning. Our children are so focused on obtaining the latest app and the latest version of whatever is being hyped that they don't have time to reflect on what might have been. This is literally true. They don't have time. All of their time is spoken for. Ding: answer this text. Ding: answer this text. Ding: answer this text.
So what are they missing that they might be able to learn from Thoreau's "old people"? Just right off the top of my head I can give you a short list: how to listen. How to notice. How to sit still for more than 30 seconds. How to breathe. How to see the murder of crows making its morning flight from eastern roost to feeding grounds in the west. (We made our own flight this morning from bedroom wing to kitchen wing to find our own feeding grounds.)
I'll stop my list there without going into the particulars of various crafts (how to knit, how to darn, how to cook, how to build a canoe, how to build a fire, make a chair, pluck a goose). To find out about skills that are on the edge of dying, the young have only to consult the old who, some might say, are also on that edge.
Let's try for a balance between the old and the new. In today's word we need to tie the old to the new like an anchor, to slow it to a more human rate of progress.
Food blog: http://fastandfearlesscooking.blogspot.ca
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