They're the tangible remains of breaths taken in a different world. They're the bricks and mortar upon which all the scaffolding of culture, society and experience were built. They're the environment, the background, the frame to a time when other minds like our own lived life just as we live it, but in a completely separate context; they're the vessels of everything we can imagine about our past, at once a complete and accurate record and the starting point for dreams without bounds. When you lay your hand on a stone that has stood for a thousand years, you're feeling just what countless men and women before you have felt - and who can say what was in their minds at that moment? They're a connection to humanity, to hope, doubt, fear and love, to experiences beyond what we know and views more full and rich than our own.
Graffiti left by a prisoner in the Tower of London, 1581
There's so much to learn about our past; millennia of challenges, decisions and victories to explore. In each passing moment, every action becomes part of the ever-increasing span of what has been. There is no end, no limit. Just life.
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