Apologies for this posting – it's rather long. But this thread really set me thinking today, and I eventually sat down and put pen to paper. Maybe someone will be interested, but if not you can always just skip it!
In my earlier reply I indicated that ancient monuments are an antidote to much of what is objectionable about modern life inside the corporate whirlwind. Undoubtedly, this is only one of a variety of treasures which these places offer the senses and the imagination. Which of these treasures is most precious will depend on the individual. But I would like to leave the task of identifying these different features to consider a tangentially related topic.
It is the idea that we might need an antidote to modern life which fascinates me. The problem seems to be that the timetable for modern life is set by non-human sources. As we have moved away from a rural outdoor life, seasonal rhythms have been forgotten. The difference between summer and winter means little more too many than the difference between a centrally heated or an air-conditioned office. Until very recently, however, winter was a period of real hardship and privation, making the arrival of spring, bursting at the seams with brand new life, and then summer with its times of warmth and plenty, that much more keenly felt. We have even forgotten the rhythm of day and night. Where our ancestors would have risen with the dawn to make the most of the daylight, we usually sleep through the earliest hours until we are woken to the obnoxious sound of a digital alarm clock. We then extend our waking period into the starkly lit, electric hours of night. And what do the rhythms of the night sky – the most grand and mysterious of all – mean to the city dweller? The movements of the stars and the planets are all but forgotten, hidden behind a screen of buzzing sherbet-orange streetlamps and carbon dioxide emissions.
Okay, enough. None of you needs my amateur romanticism to perceive this aspect of the character of modern life. The point I started off with was that ancient places seem somehow to provide the texture, the simple rugged beauty, and the sense of permanence which some of us crave. I am struck by how widespread this urge to transcend modern life is. Every day, ramblers flock to the hills, desperate to feel the blast of the elements; climbers take to the cliffs and high places, seeking the life and death thrill which has always been part of human life in its natural environment; reconstructions of historical battles are staged; traditional dances, songs and stories are kept alive. Is it too far fetched to suggest that all these activities, like ancient monuments, can offer a taste of what is timeless within human experience? And that this is why we love them?
Ironically the commercial machine has not been blind to this trend. I suppose that wherever there is a desire, be it material or spiritual, there is a market. Every pub name with a 'Ye Olde' prefix and every sprawling development of holiday homes alongside 'quaint' old villages marks the attempt to cash in on our desire to escape the profit orientated mindset which does all the cashing in!
Fortunately, life goes on. Even in the densest urban environment you can find some green avenue where the wind still speaks its ancient language through the branches of the trees, and always the human heart beats to the same rhythm in our chests as it used to in those of our ancestors. There are many roads down which the imagination can wander into the past. A fascination with ancient monuments is one. A love of folk traditions is another. But it seems to me that what these places and pastimes offer is not simply access to the past, but even more importantly, they offer links with the past which are as alive today as they ever were. I do not seek to understand the Ancients themselves so much as I seek to understand that we are the same as them, and that our lives and our home – this planet – are as beautiful and as vital as they have been throughout the ages.
Any comments, suggestions, quibbles, qualms and outright disagreements much appreciated.
