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Rereading, rewatching, re-experiencing

I brought some reading along for our holiday travels. I keep a different sleep/wake cycle from much of my family (apparently morning-person-genes are recessive) so I often have time to read.  I brought along a collection of noir novels from the fifties that I have read before and a small text on the mathematical properties of ordering in-and-of-itself, as applied across multiple topics in mathematics. I am rereading both because I get the same kind of pleasure from them as when I read them the first time.

I don't have as much disposable time as I used to but I have watched in my youth a large number of films more than ten times. A well-made film has more to discover with each viewing.

I have read Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, at least his volumes to date (please, DK, finish the series before you die, please) over ten times. It is a work so dense that each time I gain new understanding and yet acknowledge that I have barely begun to master it. Why? Because it is enjoyable, Sisyphean as it often seems.

I often go to or attend concerts of works that I have heard before. Great works are subject to new interpretations and contain multitudes of experiences each and every time.

I do believe that our culture values new experiences more than it needs to. We don't need to remain tethered to what has gone before but newness by itself is not a virtue. Quality and depth are.

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