Fair warning, this post is for more melodramatic than I thought it would be. If I'm being honest, I don't even know why I'm writing this post in the first place. It rained last night, and Bangalore is looking far more exquisite than I expected her to look. Sitting here, with a warm cup of coffee in my hand and mellow music flowing into the crevices of my soul, I feel complete, whole. I feel alive in a way that's rare and special.
I can't seem to get a story out of my mind, though.
Jason Webley wrote about a new show he's going to perform named Margaret. If you're not too busy, you should read the blog post. Its about a woman named Margaret Rucker, whose scrap book was found by Jason's friend in a San Francisco dumpster. That scrap book held her life. Pictures, poems, stories, everything. Imagine the vastness of your life, the sheer size of it, all resting pretty between the hard covers of a book. Every single thought you dreamed up, every idea you breathed life into, every memory you carved into your heart - everything - snug between two pieces of cardboard.
Imagine every achievement you hold dear, every relationship you shared, every little souvenir from your life ending up in a dumpster twenty years after your passing. How unbelievably sad is that? There will come a time no one will remember. Everyone who ever knew you would be dead. Your name will be nothing but an arrangement of letter on genealogy websites.
Maybe we, as a generation, will have a greater impact. We have so many avenues to express ourselves. On the internet alone we have facebooks and twitters and tumblrs. We have our blog posts and the comment section of most websites. Our activities will decline, our pages will remain stagnant. But we'll leave a mark. I think of Margaret Rucker, whose whole life was left in a dumpster, to be broken, crushed and purged. She exists now in this ever-changing world because of one man's curiosity. Like the subjects of the thousands of old portraits, photographs and daguerreotypes she exists in the things that hold her image. Things that almost got destroyed.
Obscurity and insignificance are terrifying. Whenever I see those old photographs of places and things, seared with the silhouettes of various unknown souls, I always wonder what happened to them. I love old photographs, but they make me so sad. There are millions of stories a hand's reach away from me, but they were lost somewhere over the dunes of time and I can never ever touch them. So many souls, lost in the seas of obscurity. Who remembers them? who thinks about them? Who talks of them? There must be millions of Margaret Ruckers by now, but most are lost to us, never to be brought back.
Even years after watching Cheers, I still think about the opening credits. I keep wondering who those people were, what were they like. Were they happy? Did they go to the pub to drink their troubles away? How long did they live? When did they die?
The boys in this particular picture still make me wonder. Did they ever really grow up, or did they breathe their last wearing those smug grins on their faces? Did they live comfortable lives and die of old age or were they lost during the World Wars? We remember Glenn Miller. Who remembers them? If a man didn't come up with the idea of using old archive photos for the opening credits of a show, would we have ever seen these boys?
Do you ever think that maybe obscurity is inevitable? I mean, who remember's Oscar Wilde's neighbor from two doors down? Is technology advanced enough to save us from being forgotten like all those Margaret Ruckers have been? If a wealthy woman from an influetial family ended up in the dumpster, what hope is there for us all?
-Bewildered
I can't seem to get a story out of my mind, though.
Jason Webley wrote about a new show he's going to perform named Margaret. If you're not too busy, you should read the blog post. Its about a woman named Margaret Rucker, whose scrap book was found by Jason's friend in a San Francisco dumpster. That scrap book held her life. Pictures, poems, stories, everything. Imagine the vastness of your life, the sheer size of it, all resting pretty between the hard covers of a book. Every single thought you dreamed up, every idea you breathed life into, every memory you carved into your heart - everything - snug between two pieces of cardboard.
Imagine every achievement you hold dear, every relationship you shared, every little souvenir from your life ending up in a dumpster twenty years after your passing. How unbelievably sad is that? There will come a time no one will remember. Everyone who ever knew you would be dead. Your name will be nothing but an arrangement of letter on genealogy websites.
Maybe we, as a generation, will have a greater impact. We have so many avenues to express ourselves. On the internet alone we have facebooks and twitters and tumblrs. We have our blog posts and the comment section of most websites. Our activities will decline, our pages will remain stagnant. But we'll leave a mark. I think of Margaret Rucker, whose whole life was left in a dumpster, to be broken, crushed and purged. She exists now in this ever-changing world because of one man's curiosity. Like the subjects of the thousands of old portraits, photographs and daguerreotypes she exists in the things that hold her image. Things that almost got destroyed.
Obscurity and insignificance are terrifying. Whenever I see those old photographs of places and things, seared with the silhouettes of various unknown souls, I always wonder what happened to them. I love old photographs, but they make me so sad. There are millions of stories a hand's reach away from me, but they were lost somewhere over the dunes of time and I can never ever touch them. So many souls, lost in the seas of obscurity. Who remembers them? who thinks about them? Who talks of them? There must be millions of Margaret Ruckers by now, but most are lost to us, never to be brought back.
Even years after watching Cheers, I still think about the opening credits. I keep wondering who those people were, what were they like. Were they happy? Did they go to the pub to drink their troubles away? How long did they live? When did they die?
The boys in this particular picture still make me wonder. Did they ever really grow up, or did they breathe their last wearing those smug grins on their faces? Did they live comfortable lives and die of old age or were they lost during the World Wars? We remember Glenn Miller. Who remembers them? If a man didn't come up with the idea of using old archive photos for the opening credits of a show, would we have ever seen these boys?
Do you ever think that maybe obscurity is inevitable? I mean, who remember's Oscar Wilde's neighbor from two doors down? Is technology advanced enough to save us from being forgotten like all those Margaret Ruckers have been? If a wealthy woman from an influetial family ended up in the dumpster, what hope is there for us all?
-Bewildered
