Refresh, revive, rejuvenate, renew. Here are four words that express the same meaning in four different ways. The word fresh originally meant fresh as opposed to salt water, so to refresh means to make pure again. Revive means to bring back to life, rejuvenate, to bring back to youth, renew, to erase what we call "the ravages of age."
That we have these four synonyms—and there are others—reminds us that everything in our world decays. The decay that concerns me here is the decay of symbols. I mean the fact that words, and stories, and pictures grow old. When they are young, they are fresh, and vital, and new. They punch us in the nose. They cause our jaw to drop.
In an old Texas idiom, they make us "stand up and say howdy."
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