Longhorned wrote:pc in NM wrote:Longhorned wrote:pc in NM wrote:Longhorned wrote:Setting aside my archaeology obsession, it's possible to have get a lot out of Mesa Verde with just a quick visit. You can't do the British Museum in an afternoon, either, but it's worth seeing what's most interesting to you.
Skip the visitors museum, talk a quick walk down into the interactive part of the site, view the famous cliff structures from above, and skip the drive around the park to visit the various structures.
Yeah, you can stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and look down, too, but you haven’t “seen” it, or “been there”....
Now hold on. You're saying if someone stood on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, and took it all in with his eyes, he hasn't seen the Grand Canyon?
More or less, yes. I’d been there several times, but until I hiked it and spent a nite by the river, I hadn’t really “seen” or “experienced” the Grand Canyon.... that’s what I mean
Let's have this out. If you hike the Grand Canyon, you can't see it anymore because you're in it. I've hiked the Hermit Trail and Havasupai Trail, I spent days down in there, and I'm here to tell you it's just like being anywhere else in nature once you're inside of it.
Nobody hiked into the Grand Canyon, slept in a sleeping bag down there, and then decided it was one of Wonders of the World. It's the seeing of it in all its expansiveness from the outside -- up on the rim -- that presents the fullness of the sublime. That's the Wonder.
If you were to blindfold a man and reveal everything once he's at the bottom of the canyon, that's the guy who hasn't seen a damn thing.
What you're saying is like if somebody goes to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to see Rambrandt's Night Watch, and then you say to him he hasn't seen it because he hasn't looked at it under a microscope. Sometimes, it's not about being inside a thing. It's about seeing it.
So, you’ve hiked the canyon, and it really didn’t add much to the experience of viewing from the rim, eh?
If/when you do, you’ll “see” infinite different perspectives, both as you go down, and on your return. You’ll “see” that dinky little line of water, from the top, become larger, more powerful, and marvel at the huge river at the bottom. You’ll see each layer, not as a smooth surface, but as very detailed, diverse and complex systems of their own. You’ll experience the temperature, humidity, etc change. You’l feel The real distances involved in your muscles. And more....
I’ve never seen Rembrandt’s Night Watch, but EVERY great painting I have seen in person has been a powerful and emotional experience - and spending time with each one, contemplating it, examining it up close and from afar enhances the experience, as opposed to just glancing it as I’d walk by..
And, I think you’d agree....
