This blog is intended as a muse. Questions are posed for mere speculation and entertainment. These are my thoughts and musings. I do not pretend to know anything (and I really don't)...
The ancient Egyptians left us the pyramids and hieroglyphics. The ancient Mayans left behind their own pyramids and stone artifacts, including an intricate stone calendar that accurately depicts dates based on our galaxy's astronomy. There are tablets, temples, cave drawings, tools, masks, carvings, jewelry, and even prosthetics left behind by several civilizations that we have only begun to understand. Civilizations from all over the world left clues for us to study; a "road map" of sorts left behind for us to discover what life was like for them. Hundreds of years after discovering many of these ancient sites and ruins, we are just finally beginning to decipher the meanings of the writing, images, and messages passed down by our ancient kin. All of these impressive temples and artifacts leave me wondering: "what will be here when we are gone?" After all, so much of our current civilization is comprised of technological means; we email; we send paper mail; we blog; we write books; we paint; we draw; we make sculptures of things; we talk (a lot)... How much of what we do and find so important will be here in 14,000 years? Where are OUR pyramids? Where are OUR hieroglyphics? Our Rosetta stone? Our calendar? We don't have any of these (or at least, none that will last tens of thousands of years). The only thing that comes close is (maybe) Mount Rushmore.... and 14,000 years from now, who is going to know who Lincoln or Roosevelt was? Nobody. Where is our legacy? Will any future civilization even know how we existed?
Many years from now.... maybe 10,000 years... what will be left of our civilization that can tell our story? Or, maybe more important, how would we tell our story? Pictures carved in stone? Tablets left in a cave? You can bet that everything I am writing right now on this computer will not be around. Even if I write it on paper, record a video, take pictures, or make a ceramic sculpture of my ideas, the chance of any of it surviving that long is very slim, if that.
We really have to give credit where it is due - the people who lived so long ago that were able to create the Great Pyramids, Mayan Calendar, Rosetta stone, and even the cave paintings at Lascaux were able to do something far greater than I believe we have been or will be able to do: make an impression on future civilizations tens of thousands of years from now.
Our satellites, cell phones, Internet, computers, books, paintings, drawings, even our alphabet may be long gone after 10,000 years; I wonder if the ancient Egyptians thought, "we will make these large stone structures to tell our story, and for years to come, we will be known as the civilization that was able to accomplish such an amazing feat." I don't know. But, it is what we say over and over again: "how did they do that?"
Wouldn't it be great if we could do something as amazing? What if we could? What would it be? How would we convey our language to another culture that likely never knew our language? Is this what the Egyptians did? Hieroglyphics seem a perfect way to communicate; pictures speak a thousand words, as the saying goes. I am certain that, if this blog is around 10,000 years from now, it may not be easy to understand, especially if our culture is long gone. With the coming of the end of the Mayan calendar, it is obvious that the ancient Mayans accomplished something we can merely dream of. Their stone calendar that was made with such precision several thousands of years ago, points to an exact date in our modern day. Coincidence? It just so happens that the exact date coincides with the galactic alignment, the time when, from Earth's perspective, our sun will rise in perfect alignment with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy; surprisingly, that date is less than two years away (12/21/2012). How did an ancient civilization have this sophisticated knowledge?
Maybe many of the prior civilizations had the same (or more advanced) technology that we enjoy today. Maybe their emails, paper mails, drawings, paintings, poetry, and sculptures didn't survive; but, some of them did something even greater: they were able to communicate with us through the most amazing structures that did survive - pyramids, hieroglyphics, stone sculptures, temples, stone tablets... Many thousands of years after civilizations crashed and burned... they still speak to us. How can we compete with that?
Maybe the hieroglyphics of ancient Egyptians that depict man with a bird head, or man with a lion's body, are stories of genetic engineering technology; the Mayans also made images of men with bird beaks and feathers... is this a depiction of genetic engineering? Or is it a story of how people at that time were able to harness the abilities of the animals that surrounded them? There are ancient depictions of flying machines that look like modern aircraft; so, maybe the ancient people had more knowledge than we give credit.
Our current technology that we hold so dear is the result of merely hundreds of years in our modern times. The 20th century alone brought about some of the most advanced technology we know and use. 10,000 years from now, there would be no record of our computers, satellites, spacecraft, medicines, and maybe not even our language. So, why would it be so hard to believe that we are simply rediscovering many of the conveniences that our ancient cousins enjoyed? I believe we may be following in some of the footsteps of those before us. But, in many aspects, we have not matched them.
I ask:
"Where are our pyramids?"
"How will future civilizations know who we were?"
"If our language does not survive, how do we tell our story?"
Civilizations have always risen and fallen. If anyone thinks we are immune to this cycle, you are wrong. So, what is our legacy? How long from after we fall will there be a trace of what we did, who we are / were, what we accomplished? If we can do half of what the Egyptians or Mayans did, we should be proud. If we can do more, we will be immortal.
Our society, our culture is immersed in the "now". We rarely see beyond a few days ahead. I believe that those cultures that we are able to study; those that left the most profound and obvious artifacts behind, knew they would someday be speaking to a whole new culture. That is the kind of foresight, I believe, we as a civilization are lacking.
In the future, maybe 10,000 years from now, our culture may just be a riddle for a future archaeologist. Unless, of course, there is some kind of "road map" we can leave behind. Our trail of bread crumbs may not be enough to teach those who come after us about who we are, what we did, and the lessons we learned.
