The Preservation of Fire

Often attributed to Gustav Mahler:

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

I have always been repulsed by the usual reading of tradition as something fixed, sacred, and meant to be repeated exactly. That never felt right to me. Some traditions are worth keeping, some are worth leaving behind, and some new ones are worth making. What matters is not obedience, but care for whatever living thing made it valuable in the first place.