Traditions Are a Central Part of Who We Are

It is such a cold evening to dig into this blog! On top of my list of ideas of how this poem communicates "success: what does it look like?" Is that the writer did not follow his ancestors' tradition, but instead, he wrote about them and accomplished success. Over the past twenty years, the writer reflects on his ancestors (father and grandfather), their hard work ethics, and the artistry of an agrarian lifestyle. He sees the value of the things worth doing well and applies them as a writer, such as what they established, respected and honored, but he did not want their lifestyle. 

A comparison I see is how two generations in the writer's life (i.e., father and grandfather) used specific tools, one being a spade to dig into the earth in the agrarian culture, and how the writer, in a metaphorical sense, applies what he has learned from them by digging through memories of his ancestors, by watching them from the sidelines. The writer gleaned the significance of hard work, values, and ethics. These inspired him to assimilate specific attributes of the former and apply them to a career that is the opposite; the latter should be the impact of tradition. The writer posits, "[b]ut I've no spade to follow men like them" (Heaney 28), comparing how the writer uses the spade throughout the poem; instead of a spade, he has a pen. He means that he can carry forward the tradition of hard work learned from his ancestors by using his pen to dig into writing. 

The spade makes me see the pen in a new way because it becomes a new tradition by still using the principles and attributes of its ancestors. I chose this comparison because I like how traditions are central to who we are. Heaney's poem resonates with my own lived experience in many ways. I did not physically observe the hard work of my ancestors because I was not born, but I could visualize what they shared from past to present in my head. Heaney best speaks to my supposition when, in Digging, metaphorically, he says, "[t]hrough living, roots awaken in my head" (Heaney 27). My ancestors have told me there are numerous benefits when I allow living roots to awaken in my head. Examples of living roots are studying hard so that I can become someone important in life and not have to depend on someone else.

A shared thought is that Heaney position is there are several paths to attaining values and beneficial experience with family, holding to traditions, yet experiencing a form of independence and emancipation without relinquishing them. He espouses that as we age, the importance of tradition and rumination should help us to stay the course of our past as we move forward. Synergistically, it will help to have an endearment with our past and keep the continuous evolution of tradition alive (Edward 2013). 

Digging is therefore a symbol that reflects a memory, tradition, the past, the writers' thoughts, and connotations. 

Source: Edward, "The Squat Pen Rest..." Reflecting upon Digging by Seamus Heaney, 2013,  https://edworded.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-squat-pen-rests-reflecting-upon.html