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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Easter Island Heads with a touch of Shelley

Today I've been pondering the huge monoliths that were left by the inhabitants of Easter Island when they had to leave. These inhabitants had managed to leave behind huge markers displaying their prowess at stonework. However, they were unable to survive because they chopped down all the trees on the island and had no way to cook or warm themselves. Can you imagine being the last woodcutter on Easter Island?

Sometimes, I wonder what our planet will look like to visitors from space if we can't overcome the current challenges that face us. Will we be thriving in a way that is more concious of the Earth? Or will the remains of moldering cities and radioactivity mark our passing? It's hard to imagine a world different from the one that we've created. Our dominance over this planet is both a drug and a blindness. Does our blindness make us proud?

As Percey Shelley noted in Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Will we leave behind pale wreckage surrounded by lone and level sands?

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