Loving and embracing the imitation, for its capacity to resemble the original, is a sign that the original was never really loved in the first place, making it expendable. If foolishness prevails, is because most people are foolish, making the pleasure of not being one of them, a pretty special, although sometimes risky, thing to do. Reading, thinking and writing have never been at the top of society’s activities, and today’s environment does not differ much from this norm. One thing is however certain, all major achievements in the human race have come from the passion given to those commonly eradicated three things. For René Girard, killing is a ritualistic obligation that carries great consequences for those whom avoid its performance, as well as a criminal act with and equally heavy price for those who commit it. The camps switch back and forth, even living side by side throughout history, with amazing easiness, according to the time and circumstances. In the opinion of Marshall McLuhan, innovations work to resemble, as perfectly as possible, the old mean of production it tries to supplant, in order to establish a reason for their existence. However, the intention is more macabre, since old technology has to be annihilated, in other to be replaced, the most inner heartbeat of capitalism. This seldom, if ever, happens. The real victory of the novelty comes when it realizes that it has something unique to offer, but has not discover it yet. Once it does, the old is forced into a soul searching process that takes it out of its comfort zone, cleaning then the dust accumulated in its forgotten depth, giving itself the chance to comeback and show human angles that remain unbeaten in bringing the best out of their practitioners, even if it is in a smaller, but indelible scale, handing the floor to the new to carry its grain to the evolution in the field. It is a recurrent story. The alphabet almost killed the memory of the bards, until it opened the world of literature; an explosion that brought the amazingly unimagined, as well as bestowing its dues to the oral tradition that, even when outstaged, it is practiced by the large majorities on a daily basis. The vinyl record threatening life concerts; the movie channels crushing movie theaters. The list extends and always follows the same pattern, mimicry to achieve displacement; new ways of doings things; recreation of the past with its peculiar and undismissable vintage flavor. The arrival and the mass production of automobiles was feared as the reign of death machines, and they were right, although insisting on walking as the only way of transportation was a backwards idea that was never going to happen, unless it does in the rediscovery that allows the freedom of not having to do it for survival, but just for the joy of it.
