Day 5 - 165 -- Throw the Past Away?

Rain filled the day -- sometimes pouring and sometimes just spitting. It made working in the office to clear the course bookshelves a bit easier. This task was completed today along with some back files. Bags 15 to 17 went to the recycle bin today. It does appear that some headway has occurred with some space showing on the course shelves.

A conversation with a colleague covered the history -- my history -- that I encountered as I've been working through this sorting process. We agreed that the next generation wouldn't value the found treasures as we would, firstly since they aren't electronic. Now that may seem harsh, but it isn't meant to cast aspersions -- just that we grew up in different eras so handwritten assignments are now a thing of the past. The same holds true for printed journals and newsletters. I stated that I worried that a lot of past knowledge would be lost since not all paper journals have been fully digitized and some never will be. That makes the research findings 'inaccessible' since search engines can't find them and searching hard copies in a bricks and mortar library is a skill that hasn't been learned. I've heard researchers say that no past studies exist in a particular area. In many cases this is not true and studies may not be easily found in the current electronic way of searching for them. So, does that mean that past knowledge is less valuable? I truly hope this isn't the prevailing feeling, but without experience searching for paper copies of past ideas, the world will lose that knowledge and all the work that went into determining it. We may have to learn to re-invent the wheel, which means we won't be able to build on past findings. Questions will never be fully answered, only revisited with the same 'new' old ideas, keeping us in the darkness about what the real answer will be.

Well that went a bit darker than I'd planned, but it is something to ponder in those off moments. <smile>.  A line from a song fit my processing of past knowledge today.Thankfully much is available electronically, but certainly not all of it. The line that came to mind was "Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away." In retrospect I'd meant this to be my learning to let go of some of the papers, while it may also mean that the past becomes less valued. Interesting.  The song is by an English singer-songwriter, the lead singer of a band with a long solo career after the group parted ways. Enjoy!

History will Teach Us Nothing -- Sting