While old is gold, new is like morning dew.

The past few weeks, this theme was knocking on my mind’s door. And as we spent time this weekend with friends and family reminiscing about the old times and talking about the new things, it was enough to kindle my thoughts…

A lot of times, we see the old paving the way for the new. The old rescinds in the background, yielding the field to the new. And while the new has learnt almost everything to that day from the old, post that transition the new is expected to tread its own path.

But as the new starts off, it emulates a lot of things that the old did. Not out of a lack of choice but because of a sense of familiarity. Sometimes the new diverges, gradually or sharply, to new forks. Even then, the fork has some connection to the past and the old.

When the new disrupts something drastically, it’s because there are things that happened in the past that led to the new transformation. The new way displaces the older one completely and becomes the new normal. And then after a few years or decades, gets displaced with something better. But all progress happened because there were some new fundamentals which were surfaced by the old, were made sense of, and applied in different ways to yield the new.

So, while the new is fresh and different, there are always traces of the old. And as new evolves and becomes better and then becomes old, it gains an appreciation of how the old helped along the way.

Likewise, in our lives, there are a lot of new things that happen which sit perfectly well with the old.

Like how we coexist with our children and our elders. Respecting each other and enjoying the wisdom of the past with the fun and frolic of the new.

Or the way we do stuff with new technology but deploying mannerisms which have been known to us for years.

Or when the old and new worlds come together physically, like in traditional towns and cities. And create a beautiful mesh of how to view the world in a continuum and not as separate epochs.

Or in the way we relive old memories with our friends and family and cherish the times gone by. At the same time enjoying experiences with the new people in our lives who we spend more time with now.

Ultimately, both are great in their own right and it’s never a fight for supremacy. It’s in fact a synchronous melody that plays out in our lives every now and then!

The more we remember this and understand that it is never an either-or choice but a balance between the two, the more harmonious our life becomes…