There's Nothing New Under The Sun

Today we had the first official snowfall of the season. It wasn't much but it did offer a glimpse of what hopefully lies ahead in the colder months of winter.

Sooner or later a reading from the Tao always finds its way into my blog. Here is a reading for today.

There's nothing to paint anymore.
We've seen everything from the classical to the absurd.
There's nothing to write anymore.
As many books are shredded as read.
There's nothing to sing anymore.
The once avant-garde is now background music.

As someone once said, "There's nothing new under the sun".

I often ask myself why I continue to write and why I publish my thoughts on this blog for friends and strangers near and far to read. What could I possibly say that is new? In all likelihood, nothing. Still, each man or woman, each generation, strives to find their voice even if the basic experience of living and being alive is a process that has repeated itself over and over many billions of times throughout the history of mankind. Even if the process of being born, of living, and of dying haven't changed much, if at all, life never seems the same for each new generation as they begin their life's journey. All new generations think their experience of life will be different. However, this is something of an illusion. Even if the world my granddaughter was born into in 2004 is not the same world as I was born into in 1951, her experience of being human will be essentially the same as mine. Each generation will struggle to paint their paintings, to write their books, and create their music as an attempt to understand the experience of their life and times. Each generation will have their own ideas about the meaning of their lives and these ideas will come out in their art. However, when it is all said and done, the human experience has changed very little. Life is like a play from Shakespeare. You can change the scenery and the context but the dialogue is the same. Human emotions and personalities have not changed. The only real change is the time in history and the circumstances into which one is born. Each generation has different scenery and stage props but the dialogue of mankind...the human experience...seems to repeat itself over and over as one generation passes away and another takes it's place.