Quick Links
Categories
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
XML/RSS Feed
Other Heathen Blogs and Journals
Caryatid's LiveJournal
Boars Heart's LiveJournal
Orn Ransom's LiveJournal
Thorolf's LiveJournal
Falki's LiveJournal
MacRaven
Seledréam
Vanatru's LiveJournal
Expanding Inward
Boars Heart's LiveJournal
Orn Ransom's LiveJournal
Thorolf's LiveJournal
Falki's LiveJournal
MacRaven
Seledréam
Vanatru's LiveJournal
Expanding Inward
Links of Heathen Interest
Other (non-heathen) Blogs
Technorati
Blog Value
My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 23, 2007 06:19 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 23, 2007 06:19 PM
Word-Fame: The Desire for Remembrance
Rome was perhaps the most heavily-graffitied
place I have ever been. That wasn't particularly shocking. What IS shocking is
that my spellchecker actually recognized "heavily-graffitied."
I understand the graffiti thing, I think, better now. There is very little in Rome that isn't centuries old, and there seems to be an unconscious pressure on you there to be remembered. I can't really explain it; I guess that there, and maybe in other places in Europe, the pressure of the past with its ancient monuments is greater upon the individual, and makes one feel smaller. Because of this there's a stronger urge to be remembered after one is gone.
In no place did I feel this as strongly as at the remains of the Forum. The Forum is the ancient site where the Roman citizens would go for their governmental and religious functions. It's the place where the Senate building stood (still stands), and where Julius Caesar was assassinated (you can find flowers laid upon the spot). It's right across the street from the Colosseum, and at the foot of the Palatine Hill.
And it made me feel small. Insignificant. Not even a footnote in history. This feeling was followed by a craving to find someone and say "Would you take a picture of me? Not with my camera. With yours. And please remember me asking this every time you look at it."
Sounds totally nuts, I know. It was just a whim, and not one I acted upon. But in the face of that, scratching your name into the wall of the Colosseum, or painting it on the wall of any other building in Rome doesn't seem so sacrilegious.
We all have buried within us, perhaps, a desire to be remembered; to make our names, if not ourselves, eternal. In ancient times in Northern Europe, powerful men would have skalds write poems about their deeds, and later the saga tradition came about from the same impulse. In Rome, they had statues built of themselves. In more modern times, people try to have their memoirs published, or the post a blog, for as transient as bytes of information may seem, the flashbulb strobe of our lives pales in comparison, we hope.
I understand the graffiti thing, I think, better now. There is very little in Rome that isn't centuries old, and there seems to be an unconscious pressure on you there to be remembered. I can't really explain it; I guess that there, and maybe in other places in Europe, the pressure of the past with its ancient monuments is greater upon the individual, and makes one feel smaller. Because of this there's a stronger urge to be remembered after one is gone.
In no place did I feel this as strongly as at the remains of the Forum. The Forum is the ancient site where the Roman citizens would go for their governmental and religious functions. It's the place where the Senate building stood (still stands), and where Julius Caesar was assassinated (you can find flowers laid upon the spot). It's right across the street from the Colosseum, and at the foot of the Palatine Hill.
And it made me feel small. Insignificant. Not even a footnote in history. This feeling was followed by a craving to find someone and say "Would you take a picture of me? Not with my camera. With yours. And please remember me asking this every time you look at it."
Sounds totally nuts, I know. It was just a whim, and not one I acted upon. But in the face of that, scratching your name into the wall of the Colosseum, or painting it on the wall of any other building in Rome doesn't seem so sacrilegious.
We all have buried within us, perhaps, a desire to be remembered; to make our names, if not ourselves, eternal. In ancient times in Northern Europe, powerful men would have skalds write poems about their deeds, and later the saga tradition came about from the same impulse. In Rome, they had statues built of themselves. In more modern times, people try to have their memoirs published, or the post a blog, for as transient as bytes of information may seem, the flashbulb strobe of our lives pales in comparison, we hope.
Posted: Thu - May 17, 2007 at 01:51 PM |
