Think about what it takes to decorate a home for a holiday or some other major event. Usually it’s not easy. I’m thinking of my own preparation for the joyous December season.
Just setting up the artificial tree is a significant effort. What with bringing it from the garage, getting it to stand more or less erect, and loading its branches with hanging items can extend over several days.
Taking it down? Well, that’s a different matter. An hour. Two tops. Including placing the ornaments in the appropriate boxes and stowing the containers according to a years old plan.
I began thinking about this: how hard it is to build; how easy it is to destroy.
My neighborhood once was almost exclusively composed of one-story homes, more like cottages than houses. Slowly, but still too rapidly, it is changing. The small homes one by one are being replaced by two story structures that in my mind disastrously alter the character of the area. The first step, of course, is the elimination of the original home. One day to reduce it to a pile of rubble. One more to remove the debris. Two days to destroy and eliminate all evidence of its one time existence. How long did it take to build it in 1950? A lot more than two days.
Arenas have a short lifespan. Construction time in years. Then for some reason the state-of-the-art facility is no longer adequate for the money-making sports team to inhabit, so it must come down. Such a massive destruction might take months, but far less that what was required to build it.
In summary, construction is difficult and time consuming. Destruction is relatively easy and quick.
You can see similar trends in many areas, not just Christmas trees and structures.
It happens all the time in businesses. Take newspapers, for example. One might have been around for 100 years or more, making reputations and serving communities. Then it is bought by an individual or a company with a lot of money whose goal is to make even more money. Layoffs come, the amount of reporting decreases, and quality goes down no matter how hard the staff that remains attempts to maintain the former excellence. A century’s effort is marginalized by a few quick pen strokes.
A reputation is established over a lifetime. It can be destroyed in a day. Often the disaster is self-inflicted. We humans can do such stupid things. But also it can come about because of lies. It’s easy to tear down another individual, especially in this day of social media. There doesn’t have to be a shred of truth in the accusation. We are all too willing to wallow in another’s misery.
I can’t help but wonder if we have inadvertently bought into this cycle of build and tear down. Do we accept that something old is useless, be it a home, a stadium, a phone, or a human being? Have we lost the ability to enjoy what is already there, willing to let go of the past without appreciating the effort taken to create the past?
We have a wonderful new performing arts facility in my town. It took years to come to fruition. A previous auditorium constructed decades earlier served the community until the new complex became available. The negative comments about the old center have been many and often nasty. There is no question that the new one is vastly superior. I’m sure the old will soon bite the dust, and it probably won’t take long. But I hate that we can’t recognize the value of what has come before and be appreciative of what it took to make it available, instead of being appreciative of how easy it is to eliminate it.
As we progress as a society, I hope we can recognize that the steps taken previously have made possible what we can construct now.
I hope we can appreciate the massive effort that built the past as we watch its rapid destruction.
Just setting up the artificial tree is a significant effort. What with bringing it from the garage, getting it to stand more or less erect, and loading its branches with hanging items can extend over several days.
Taking it down? Well, that’s a different matter. An hour. Two tops. Including placing the ornaments in the appropriate boxes and stowing the containers according to a years old plan.
I began thinking about this: how hard it is to build; how easy it is to destroy.
My neighborhood once was almost exclusively composed of one-story homes, more like cottages than houses. Slowly, but still too rapidly, it is changing. The small homes one by one are being replaced by two story structures that in my mind disastrously alter the character of the area. The first step, of course, is the elimination of the original home. One day to reduce it to a pile of rubble. One more to remove the debris. Two days to destroy and eliminate all evidence of its one time existence. How long did it take to build it in 1950? A lot more than two days.
Arenas have a short lifespan. Construction time in years. Then for some reason the state-of-the-art facility is no longer adequate for the money-making sports team to inhabit, so it must come down. Such a massive destruction might take months, but far less that what was required to build it.
In summary, construction is difficult and time consuming. Destruction is relatively easy and quick.
You can see similar trends in many areas, not just Christmas trees and structures.
It happens all the time in businesses. Take newspapers, for example. One might have been around for 100 years or more, making reputations and serving communities. Then it is bought by an individual or a company with a lot of money whose goal is to make even more money. Layoffs come, the amount of reporting decreases, and quality goes down no matter how hard the staff that remains attempts to maintain the former excellence. A century’s effort is marginalized by a few quick pen strokes.
A reputation is established over a lifetime. It can be destroyed in a day. Often the disaster is self-inflicted. We humans can do such stupid things. But also it can come about because of lies. It’s easy to tear down another individual, especially in this day of social media. There doesn’t have to be a shred of truth in the accusation. We are all too willing to wallow in another’s misery.
I can’t help but wonder if we have inadvertently bought into this cycle of build and tear down. Do we accept that something old is useless, be it a home, a stadium, a phone, or a human being? Have we lost the ability to enjoy what is already there, willing to let go of the past without appreciating the effort taken to create the past?
We have a wonderful new performing arts facility in my town. It took years to come to fruition. A previous auditorium constructed decades earlier served the community until the new complex became available. The negative comments about the old center have been many and often nasty. There is no question that the new one is vastly superior. I’m sure the old will soon bite the dust, and it probably won’t take long. But I hate that we can’t recognize the value of what has come before and be appreciative of what it took to make it available, instead of being appreciative of how easy it is to eliminate it.
As we progress as a society, I hope we can recognize that the steps taken previously have made possible what we can construct now.
I hope we can appreciate the massive effort that built the past as we watch its rapid destruction.
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