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Today's
quotation:
The
classical person is just a bundle of routine, ideas and tradition.
If you follow the classical pattern, you are understanding the
routine,
the tradition, the shadow-- you are not understanding yourself.
Bruce Lee
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Today's
Meditation:
I think that
much of what we do in life is simply a repetition of
things that have been done before. We try things, we
fail or we succeed, and if we succeed, we emulate the
actions that led to the success-- whether it's the best way
of doing a certain something or not. What Bruce
calls "classical patterns" are simply the same
ways of doing things, and we do them in those ways because
others have done them before us. Many people
actually reject their instincts and their intuition in
favor of following established patterns, even though those
established patterns hold little creativity or newness any
more.
Sometimes
we allow tradition to warp our perspective, especially
when traditions are cruel or unfair to particular
groups. Nowadays we look poorly upon groups that don't
allow people of a certain race, but until recently, such
groups were rather common (and they still are, though not
in the public eye). Shirley Jackson addressed the
cruelty of some traditions in her short story "The
Lottery," and it's a frightening story indeed--
though
not beyond belief. When we allow this to happen to
us, then it's no longer about the tradition-- it's more
about us not being willing to take our own path in life
because we might lose the support of others if we do so.
Traditions
can be valuable. They can give us a sense of
connection with our ancestors-- though we have to keep in
mind that it's only the sense of connection that we're
getting, as the connection itself is always present.
Traditions can help us to understand the lives that our
forebears lived, the struggles that they faced,
the successes that they achieved. Some people
feel much more grounded when they're involved in
traditional ceremonies or ways of doing things. But
the truth is that the world doesn't stand still, and
holding tight to tradition just for tradition's sake often
doesn't allow us to move on with the world, or to change
on our own, in our own ways.
Some
traditions are truly beautiful, and I would never say that
we should reject the good and positive traditions in favor
of change for change's sake. I love a good
Thanksgiving dinner, and I really enjoy Christmas.
But I know that I'm celebrating in a way that was
appropriate years ago, and that I'm perpetuating a
tradition-- I don't try to tell others that they should do
what I'm doing, for if they want to change things up,
they're more than free to do so. Let's celebrate our
traditions and respect them, then, but not allow them to
rule our lives. Our todays are too valuable to be
ruled by our yesterdays.
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