The Sparrow & the Martin

Once built by man, never again devoid of him. It seems that we cannot leave even our relics alone. It is by some instinct that we must claim that which is abandoned. The pyramids, the Parthenon, Stonehenge. They stole the nose off the Sphinx and broke the arms off the Venus de Milo. There is no thing sacred. Kilroy will always be there. Just ask Holden Caulfield. There is nothing safe from vanity, ego, pride and the desire to be seen, to be heard. Men have painted words and symbols on walls for 30,000 years. We just can't stand blank space, or silence. That which is empty must be filled. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. Men do this thing with markers and paint. It is primarily male, the adolescent male. The adolescent mind. I am here, I am here. I assert my existence. I assert my self-imposed identity  (that shall remain hidden and secret to all but myself). The irony of graffiti is that it is an aggressive act of anonymous self-proclamation. I demand to be heard - mysteriously. You *will* hear me (but never actually *know* me). One creates a false identity, a tag, a nom de spray, then applies it under cover of darkness and runs away. It must be quite an addiction this. To piss on a pole and have it remain for all to see and smell. Here, by the ocean, in the old gun emplacement, are dozens of fake names left by real people in a place designed to kill other real people now long abandoned and left to decay. The insecure have reclaimed that which was intended to secure. The coward has claimed the enclave of the brave. The walls, though mortar-proof are not idiot-proof. But who are the real idiots? The graffiti scrawlers? Or the men who built the gun emplacement only to have it become obsolete before it was even finished? Those who simply wish to be recognized as human, or those who seek to destroy humanity? Maybe the real geniuses are not the engineers who construct our towers and bridges but the kids who claim them. Like the Sparrow who steals the Martin's nest.

o O o