I sit in my living room tonight recognized through little bits of information and translated into a precise coordinate on this tiny blue marble, floating in space. What does it all mean to me? to you? As I prepare myself to experience a different part of the world, I realize that all I am about to see has been seen a million times before. Every structure, every column, every statue, every painting, every fresco, every cobblestone. It has all been written about; thousands of times. All the historians have recorded it, all the architects have critiqued it (and far better than I ever could). There sits millions of books around the world which contain similar bits of information which I might regard as novel but have instead already been considered, documented, and analyzed. So I sit here tonight and ask myself, what is left to do? What new information can I extract and leave to posterity? What can I contribute? What can I add?
I hope to formulate the answers to some of these questions along my travels. There are no answers right now. I hope to be inspired by what I see. I hope that I still have that child-like sense of wonder inside me. Could my writings influence a new generation of architects? Perhaps this is overstepping the capabilities of my own intelligence. I realize that most of the thousands who have made this journey before me have been forgotten into history, save for their family members and their close friends. Their works have built somewhat upon previous generations, but are not regarded as necessary historical documents.
How can I contribute and leave an important legacy behind? We shall see.
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