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bladup
bladup
1986 posts

Re: feelings vs facts
Sep 04, 2012, 19:19
thesweetcheat wrote:
Rhiannon wrote:
I don't see how, I think this is a very interesting conversation and totally at the heart of what a tma forum ought to be about.

Also, we don't seem to be arguing or slagging each other off which is especially nice :)

I can totally relate to what you're saying, about the wanting to connect with something (perhaps that's what you're saying). something about what human beings are all about. something that you can only get a clearer idea of when you're dealing in time frames much bigger than a single lifetime. dunno.

But what do you make of my point that there are other places you could go and experience something of that? That it doesn't have to be the carefully managed and manicured begravelled Skara Brae? That in fact there might be even better places? But I realise Skara Brae is pretty ace. You don't get neolithic sideboards everywhere.


I think this is one of the most interesting discussions on here for a long time and I don't think it's OT at all ED. In fact, I think its so fundamentally ON Topic that all the other TMA topics may actually be off topic. If you see what I mean.

I think I am able to accept the dichotomy of my own views on this issue (as set out in my late-night rambling last night) and that there is a difference between the much-visited at-risk site and the little-visited places I generally frequent.

The discussion does however make me even less enthusiastic about visiting places like Stonehenge (that I still have never been to), as what I love about most sites I visit is probably going to be "missing in action" at Stonehenge. Getting up close and personal is part of the draw, and if it's not possible (for entirely sensible reasons of site-preservation) I'd rather skip the visit than peer throught the fence, if I'm honest. Having said that - and this bit may be a little more controversial - where places are fenced off for no reason other than purely proprietory selfishness (i.e not to preserve the site or anything like that, but purely to keep the proles out), I willl still feel less compunction about getting closer.


What would you think of stonehenge at the summer solstice then, where you can wander amongst the stones with 20000 other people, i've been to the winter solstice a few times and even then there was a 1000 plus, it's all or nothing to the idiots that run the place, but at the end of the day if you can get amongst the stones of stonehenge for free it's totally mind blowing, i hate crowds but go just to feel the power of the place, of which i only felt by sneaking in at night, as i hit the edge of the circle in the darkness all the hairs on my body stood up, i didn't even know i'd hit the circle til this happened, i had been on a normal day and viewed it as a sculpure like everyone else and felt nothing apart from a pulling into it, that's why i went back at the solstice, this was 2001 and i've gone most years since, it is worth it but hard to see people climbing on the stones and the litter, don't start me on the litter.
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