Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I like to be buttoned onto tradition. The thing is to improve it, twist it and mold it; to make something new of it; not to deny it. The riches of history can be plucked at any point.
The most interesting thing about a postage stamp is the persistence with which it sticks to its job.
It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.
The habit of collecting, of attachment to things, is an essential human trait. But Western civilization put collecting on a pedestal by inventing museums. Museums are about representing power. It could be the king's power or, later, people's power.
I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.
In the years that I worked in museums, first as a summer student and eventually as a curator, one of the primary lessons I learned was this: History is shaped by the people who seek to preserve it. We, of the present, decide what to keep, what to put on display, what to put into storage, and what to discard.
Tradition means taking account of a wonderful history but remembering that everybody today looks to the future.
Collecting records is, for many, beyond a hobby.
Some people collect stamps, other people like to be famous. I don't have that hobby.
You can embrace nostalgia and history and tradition at the same time - it has to progress or it can't survive.