Dan

I went to school in California and New York, but I haven't finished studying (learning). I am currently in Iraq (it seems I keep going eastward) and I enjoy meeting new people. I wish I were better at knowing old friends, but I thank Myspace for creating such an awesome haunting-machine that reminds me how bad I have been at keeping in touch the past 10 years... ...I really enjoy this poem by PB Shelley. I agree with the basic point that even the works of mighty humans are still works by humans, thus temporary. (Okay I admit I have a problem with unjustified authority...) Most importantly, it makes me think about the many times we fear those we deem "mighty." Most interestingly, I had to memorize it for a poetry class at a military school... ... ...I met a traveller from an antique land / Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, / Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown / And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command / Tell that its sculptor well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, / The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. / And on the pedestal these words appear: / "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" / Nothing beside remains: round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away. /