Pages

20130108

After the War

The Sarajevo Winter Olympics awards platform. In 1984 it was the scene of triumph. A few years later, target practice. Such is the way of war, swiftly ripping away hard fought gains in culture.
Like ski jumping. Seriously, think how luxurious it is to live in a time when we build huge structures so people can ski jump off them, and we do so at an intense level of competition.

Now see them as you stumble out of the woods chasing a rabbit for dinner (in the far future), and you come across these two stone "bridges?" to nowhere. What strange magic men of old once practiced!

Aye, magic. Look around! But war can take it all away, and not just bombs and guns and tanks and such, but economic and cultural war can be equally destructive. Once you lose a certain level of civilization, for whatever reason, there's no guarantee it will come back. There's only so much any society can take before it breaks. Such has been the fall of all great empires, all nations, all peoples, sooner or later.

It can be delayed, with wisdom. But all things fade in time.

No comments: