Here I am, green to blogging. I have created a new blog on three blog sites: blogger, wordpress and tumblr. I have even succeeded in following myself. Don't ask why!
Yet, I am not clueless by any means when it comes to using computers. I am a technology buff, you know? Like most people, I make the most of it. I couldn't imagine life without these little shiny and glossy objects that we couldn't even imagine when we were kids. Funny how we tend to forget the times when we couldn't skype or pre-order the latest object of desire on Amazon or eBay Inc.
I guess we had more time then, time to read more, to write letters, to keep a diary, to spend more time listening to the significant others...
But have we changed, really? Today, people no longer keep a diary, they blog. Reading paperbacks will soon become obsolete, though I hope not, I must add. We claim that success depends on good communication, but do we know how to listen?
Many things changed, but actually, if you take a closer look, they remained the same. This is why more and more people are buzzing about vintage.
Oh, I love vintage. I love the look, the smell, and the sound of anything vintage. I love the story behind shabby chic objects, hidden in attics, dusted and yellowed by age.
But primarily, I have a deep respect for old people who can tell a story. When was the last time we spoke to an old person? Sigh... They grow older, frailer, sicker, and they won't be much longer around us. We spend our time rummaging feverishly for anything vintage that we can revamp, but we sometimes fail to realise that these beautiful objects are leaden with a story of their own. They have been somewhere, sometime, with somebody who is, probably, no longer here with us.
This is why we need stories. We need to remember things and people because otherwise, we will lose our identity. We will forever shop in giant, nameless marts, buying plastic, eating plastic, leading a plastic existence.
Au lieu of conclusion, I will leave you with a beautiful song, Autrefois, by Pink Martini.
I completely agree. Whenever I pick up something antique, I wonder about the long-gone hands that held it and eyes that gazed at it, and what stories were woven around them and it.
ReplyDeleteI think that part of the reason so many of us love the age of plastic, is precisely because we WANT to be de-sensitized. We wish to forget the past, whether our own or someone else's. As children, we learned to fear ghosts, and this fear persists throughout our lives, even if the only ghosts are in our heads. But then, the recesses of our minds can be infinitely more fearsome places than any old attic or cellar.
There are no ghosts in McDonalds, after all!