tradition (n.) is formed in a people as childhood memories are in a person: whatever is distressing to national feeling is wiped away.

Sigmund Freud on Tradition

Accumulate

Accumulate Value

Accumulate Weight

Anchor

Are Better The Second Time

Are Easier To Build Than Maintain

Are Hard To See From Inside

Are Mostly Expectations

Are Mostly Memory

Become Harder To Replace

Become Infrastructure

Become More Interesting The Longer You Look

Become More Interesting With Age

Become More Real Through Repetition

Become More Real With Age

Become More Valuable After Use

Become More Valuable Together

Become More Valuable When Shared

Become Real Only When Shared

Become Real Through Repetition

Become Somebody’s Responsibility

Become Someone Else’s Problem

Become Stronger When Shared

Become Themselves Through Use

Become Visible Through Use

Borrow Authority

Borrow Authority From Age

Borrow Time

Carry Authority

Carry Memory

Change Hands

Change Their Meaning Over Time

Circulate

Collect Dust

Come From A Cradle

Continue

Creak

Create Attachment

Create Belonging

Create Common Ground

Create Context

Create Continuation

Create Continuity

Create Depth

Create Depth Over Time

Create Echoes

Create Expectations

Create Identity

Create Memory

Create Momentum

Create Momentum Across Generations

Create More Than They Consume

Create Permanence

Create Predictability

Create Stability

Decay

Depend On Being Renewed

Depend On Quality More Than Timing

Echo

Endure

Exist Mostly In Consequence

Exist Mostly In Their Consequences

Exist To Be Carried

Extend Memory

Grow While Standing Still

Harden

Have Long Memories

Have To Be Carried Across

Improve By Being Passed Along

Improve By Being Slightly Broken

Improve By Having A History

Improve Through Repetition

Improve Through Waiting

Improve With Use

Invite Interpretation

Invite Return

Invite Stewardship

Leave Residue

Live In An Almanac

Make Good Ancestors

Make Good Descendants

Make Knowledge Durable

Make The Past Reachable

Mark Time

Mature

Need Belief

Need Context

Need Cultivation

Need Defense

Need Interpretation

Need Interpretation To Exist

Need Protection

Need Renewal

Need Winding

Occupy The Same Space Differently

Only Exist Because We Agreed

Only Get Noticed When They Break

Organize Life

Organize Memory

Organize Time

tradition

Tradition is the illusion of permanance. Woody Allen

Tradition will accustom people to any atrocity George Bernard Shaw

is formed in a people as childhood memories are in a person: whatever is distressing to national feeling is wiped away.

Recast in definition form from: “… to wipe from memory whatever is distressing to national feeling …”

must deny the small truth to protect the large one: to admit circumcision was Egyptian would be to admit the whole religion was.

Recast in definition form from: “… To admit that circumcision was an Egyptian custom introduced by …”

can win slowly what its founder lost at once: the people renounced Moses and removed him, yet over centuries his teaching reached the aim denied him.

Recast in definition form from: “… influence reached though only slowly, in the course of centuries …”

that should fade instead grows stronger over centuries, until it seizes the minds of the people and turns their god back into the one they abandoned.

Recast in definition form from: “… It is that these traditions instead of growing weaker as …”

is the complement and the contradiction of written history: freer from deliberate distortion, so perhaps truer — but vaguer, and worn by every mouth it passes through.

Recast in definition form from: “… vaguer and more fluid than the written text, being exposed …”

is the more fit for the poet the more shadowy it has become: he fills its gaps as his imagination bids.

Recast in definition form from: “… might almost say that the more shadowy tradition has become …”

passed by word of mouth alone could never become obsessive: it would be weighed and maybe rejected like any news — only by first being repressed does it gain the power to escape logic and seize the masses.

Recast in definition form from: “… to, weighed and perhaps rejected, just like any other news …”

Definitions HQ