Tradition is not the preservation of fixed forms, but the ongoing transmission of purpose—a living thread that weaves through changing methods. Convention , by contrast, is what’s left when the core is lost and only the form remains. Most things are a mix of the two.
Grief is a giant neon sign, protruding through everything, pointing everywhere, broadcasting loudly, “Love was here.” In the finer print, quietly, “Love still is.”
Ideologies are ways of organizing large swaths of life and experience under a set of shared but unexamined assumptions. This quality makes an ideology particularly hard to see, at least while it’s exerting its hold on your culture. A reigning ideology is a little like the weather, all pervasive and virtually inescapable. Still, we can try.