I have this theory that, with a lot of things in life, people are trying to relive, re-experience, various earlier points in their history. For example, those who get together as adults for a drinking-session with their pals, whether it be in pubs, houses, or underpasses, are trying, sub-consciously, to recapture the thrill of when they were teenagers and embarking on rebellious 'forbidden fruits' for the very first time. Those who attend football matches are, in their heart of hearts, hoping to catch a glimmer of what it was like when their father took them to their first game and brainwashed them into supporting the team that he supported. (I always cringe when I see toddlers wearing Celtic or Rangers [or any team's] strips, as it means they're being programmed practically from birth in the bigoted ways of their father, determined to perpetuate his own blind allegiance to a football club as if it were a religion. Sad.)
Not convinced? Well, a large percentage of kids who collect stamps, or go train-spotting, or build model aeroplane kits, or just about anything you care to mention, still pursue those same pursuits when they're older. I'm probably a perfect example of what I'm talking about. As a kid, my interests were toys and comics, and as a doddery old fart mature adult, I still have the same interests. Not only the same interests though, as I've obviously added new ones over the years to my repertoire of 'hobbies' - as do other people, I'm sure. Yet we never quite abandon our first ones. Although I used to buy new comics (not so often nowadays), I still bought reissues of old comics that I'd read in childhood and adolescence. Take the TRUE BELIEVERS comics I've been acquiring recently - I have those stories several times over, but I get a certain thrill in having them again in a new presentation, and can only conclude that I'm trying to relive the experience of when I first read them.
Christmas is another case in point. Although it's a tradition we repeat every year, we don't just do it for our own kids (if we have any) or only because custom demands, but also to try and re-experience the magic that the season was once filled with when we were children. We're probably, without fully realising it, trying to relive our own childhood through that of our kids, and it's the glow of Christmases past which illuminates those of the present. So have a little think about it. Every time you engage in a regular pursuit that you enjoy, it's not only to experience the new 'buzz' that it brings, but also to (sub-consciously) re-experience an earlier one. After all, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Or am I over-thinking things? If you understand my vaguely-expressed haverings, feel free to let me know in the comments section.
6 comments:
When I was a kid my parents didn't drink alcohol but the exception was Christmas when we had beer and Babycham. The beer was often mixed with lemonade to make shandy. Every Christmas I buy a pack of Babycham and I make home-made shandy purely to keep up that childhood tradition from so long ago.
Perpetuation can be a wonderful thing, CJ. However, as it's not the actual beer or Babycham you had as a kid, how can it satisfy you? They are, after all, only replacements. (Well, that's what you usually say.)
Well, Kid, I'm not trying to replace the original beer and Babycham or claiming that a newly-bought pack of Babycham magically becomes the first Babycham I ever tasted - I'm merely keeping up a long festive tradition :)
You're trying to re-experience a particular time in your life by partaking of something you had when younger, but doing so with 'replacements', not with the original 'participants'. That's exactly what I'm doing with my re-acquired comics or toys. That's what tradition is - repeating a moment in memory of it.
OK, I accept your argument - but the beer and Babycham I buy every year is only transitory and doesn't clutter up my house!
But it b*ggers up your insides. Besides, my house isn't cluttered - just 'well-stocked'.
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