Pictographs

There are a significant number of pictographs around where I live. Not like Southwest numbers, but there are still quite a few. Some are well-hidden in the middle of nowhere, and others are quite close to "civilization".

So it's impressive that they aren't vandalized more.

Unfortunately about four years ago, the pictographs nearest to where I live were defaced by painting over and chipping out the rock. Now you can barely see the outlines.

What makes a man like that, someone who would destroy such a thing? Pure racism? Drunken mindlessness? Conqueror mentality? Sociopath?

Someone in time immemorial painted these figures on the rock, and they persisted through decades, centuries, millennia, bearing silent witness to the endless passage of history. Who knows how many people gazed upon them and wondered about the moment those ancient artists fixed them to the basalt face.

And then, four years ago, someone ended all that for all posterity. Can we even classify the perpetrators as human? Or, maybe, we must do so. But they are assholes, I maintain.

As we make our marks around the world, sometimes we create and sometimes we senselessly destroy. But ultimately the Earth will simply watch the passing of our species with casual disinterest.

I think our only job is to make our time here as useful for future generations as we can. Or maybe I have it wrong and our only job is to violate as many of the Seven Deadly Sins as we can. Collect them all!

The way I see it, you're going to die, so you'd better make the most of this one life that you can.

And what that means, I suppose, is entirely up to you.

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