The Irony

The sprawling capital of Mexico, home to 20 million people, was built atop the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. While I didn´t visit those ruins, it seems as though everything in Mexico City was built to become ruined. Every building seems to be falling apart, with graffiti and broken windows, crumbling concrete and rusted roofs. Most of this sprawl cannot be more than a hundred years old, and certainly wouldn´t last another hundred. Only an hour north however, lay another set of ruins, those of Teotihuacan. These predate the Aztecs, built over a thousand years ago, and of such magnitude-- its Temple of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world-- that they could seemingly last forever.

Although the trend of building cheaply is seen the world over, how does a culture build something so permanent, only to be replaced by a culture that completely casts longevity aside? Perhaps it is a sign of progress, in an ironic way. Slaves focus the energy of a society on a few grand achievements, whereas individuals build what they can with what is available. Perhaps a free world leaves nothing to be remembered by; as much as I love seeing spectacular ruins, I think I´m ok with that.