Archaeology

A new year, and, astonishingly, the seven hundred and thirty second consecutive entry into this blog. When I started this, I had no idea things would get to this point. I wonder, were I to go over the entire two years since my first post, whether I would find larger patterns, perhaps a general continental drift. Are there measurable changes in our psyches, some shift over time, that we can see from our written words? In what sense am I the same person I was two years ago, and in what sense am I someone new?

We cannot know these things so easily simply from looking into our souls. After all, we all have a strong emotional identification with that six year old child we still hold in our memories. And yet we are indisputably quite different now than we were then.

But a written record of one’s thoughts, day to day over any length of time, provides a kind of archaeology of the soul, fertile ground from which we may unearth the shards of pottery and bits of sacred relics from temples now forgotten, bits of thought that once held meaning for us. We may look at these things now with a bemused or even puzzled expression, wondering at the earlier self who had put such stock in them.

Or perhaps we should simply let these sleeping relics lie where they are, entombed in cyberspace for future archaeologists to ponder, and focus our energies toward building new temples that celebrate the future, and all we have yet to become.

One thought on “Archaeology”

  1. This is kind of inspiring. It has been six months since my last blog post – partly because I’ve not got that much to say, but also because I’m just not brave enough to hit ‘publish’ and share with the world. I salute you, cap’n.

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