I had to go to the city the other day (Sydney) to check out a venue, the theatre in NSW Parliament House, for a perfomance of one of my plays 'Under the Bridge' to be performed there in November.
I couldn't remember the last time I got off the island (Hornsby) to venture anywhere. I'm walking up George St... Now I should have preempted all this with: I love history. I don't mean history as in memorising the dates of the voygers of Vasco de Gama or great war battles, although there is nothing great about war. No, I'm talking about people history. The celebrated, the mediocre and the down right run-o-mill people in our past. The documented and the imagined. That last statement will become clear in a moment.
So as I often do as I walk, I start imagining the people past that have trodden this exact path. The famous, the infamous and the ordinary. I start imagining what my surrounding would have looked like in different periods of the past. Although Australia is a relatively young nation compared to the majority of the world. We still have a bit over two hundred years of it's citizens and visitors treading this exact same ground.
As far as Sydney is concerned, the birthplace of Australia, the ghostly footprints are significant. The great city builder Governor Macquarie, the infamous Govenor (Captain) Bligh certanly would have walked where my feet tred. The convicts, the ticket of leaves, the soldiers. Soldiers from all the conflicts. On their way abroad, home on leave, back for good; it's over. Sqizzy Taylor, Ronald Biggs, Chrisopher Skase all would have walked this way. The ordinary people, although I don't find any life ordinary, of all eras, walking here, going about their day in 'the big smoke'.
I'm a fanatical plaque reader. I'll cross the road the read a plaque I've spotted. That's a strange thing to do! Hmmm... not really. Not when you believe that in this very brief, brief as in the big picture, moment that we are here in this world, you need to leave a legacy. Something to say I was here. Something that someone, in the disant future, will acknowledge. That's what plaque reading does.
Plaques are there for a reason. They are a celebration or recognition of something or someone. A legacy that was thought significant enough that it derserved a plaque. Even if it is just for 'something' there is always people, citizens, just like you and me behind the reason. Folk, community minded enough to make it happen. In reading the plaque not only do I learn something but I'm acknowledging these people and their legacy to us; one of the generations in the "for generations to come".
A generation though, I find very destination orientated. A generation that is very point A to B. The journey and it's hidden treasures are rarely acknowledged. The wearing of blinkers seems to be the order of the day.
"Take the time to stop and smell the roses" an age old saying but great advice. First coined by... who knows! One of those gems authored by 'Anonymous'. But it's only anonymous because we don't know the originator. There was a being behind this thought. Every time we say, write, read or think these sayings, poems, writings we are acknowledging their legacy to us all.
I always think of the Egyptian Pharaohs when I talk about legacys. Although their legacy was motivated by 'me', their ego left us with an enormous wealth of our past. Their belief of the after-world gave us a huge insite into their lives. The funny thing is they, in a way, got what they wanted. This after-world may not have been what they imagined. They gained their eternal life by never leaving this world because of their self indulgent legacy. They are still alive today through biographies, documentaries, movies, lectures. The writings contained wthin their monuments to them by them, the pyramids, are the grand-daddys of all 'plaques'.
I can only imagine, as I have never treked to the ancient cities of the world... yet. Of how my quirk of 'who walked or stood here before me' would be. Socrates, Ceasars, Shakespeare, Galileo, Jack the Ripper... I think you get the idea.
We owe our present to the people of the past. Not only the well documented, the famous, the well known but the people, the citizens, the individuals. Give them a thought every now and then. Acknowledge their great legacy. We owe them that much.
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