Copyright: j.borzicchi

Everything New Is Old Again

Alythia of the Ash
5 min readJun 30, 2021

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired of clickbait articles that try to pit generations against each other — Gen Z wants to tell Millennials they hate their skinny jeans, Baby Boomers are to blame for why everything has gone to shit, and must be shamed for it. Gen X, of course, sits on the sidelines in their lawn chairs with their popcorn poking fun at the show. Those are the tropes being sold, and we’re all supposed to buy into it, because it’s entertaining and makes money for advertisers when you click those headlines and provide those coveted eyeballs.

There’s a species of it in the witch community too. I’ve talked before about it as I’ve worked out some of my initial (and unfounded) fears of Instagram witches, and how we need to get over some of the ways generations miss each other and stop calling new practitioners “Baby Witches.” Generational distrust and antagonism aren’t unusual things. The dynamic is pretty much as old as time itself. It works like this: a group of younglings come of age and begin to feel their power. They are the best and brightest because they are the newest, and have the benefit of all the latest technologies and recent knowledge, and all the neuroplasticity of youth to help them be facile with that technology and knowledge.

These younglings feel their power, and they crow their superiority. And they aren’t entirely wrong either. They do not have experience, but they have enthusiasm and energy and a fearlessness that lets them try things that haven’t been tried, think things that haven’t been thunk, and learn things no one has known before. Sometimes that works really well. Sometimes it doesn’t. History tends not to remember the failures. (Except for New Coke. No one will ever forget that fiasco.)

The thing is, time marches on. And soon a new generation sprouts up, and THEY are now the brightest young things who have the best and newest ideas and tools. And the generation that is now “old news” starts to get resentful. “WAIT A MINUTE! I thought I was the best and brightest! Certainly I am STILL better than you young whippersnappers!” But they aren’t. They are not the newest and best anymore. Their time in that role is over. But they aren’t wrong either. Experience is valued for a reason. We’ve all been in that spot where we’re trying to do something new that we’ve never done, and then…

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Alythia of the Ash

A believer in magic and justice and the right to be exactly as you are. Anything passing for wisdom here is likely the product of surviving my own stupidity.