Despite everything on Paros being centered on the evolving and ever growing tourism industry, I was struck with inspiration for this blog today while we toured the ancient ruins of Despotiko. This is an ancient temple off the coast of the island of Antiparos and they are in the process of doing something that I found to be personally fascinating; they are rebuilding the temple’s structures with pieces of marble from the excavation. I know this may sound like something simple, but the architects there were going as far as to carve out sections of new marble so that they could adhere to sections of ancient marble to recreate the original structure. This is what got me thinking.
Throughout our trip, the farming documentary team has been following three people: Elena, Pandelis, and Arsenis. Arsenis is a modern farmer who uses technology and advanced methods to grow his crops. Elena is an organic farmer who stays away from pesticides and fertilizer, but does do things like watering to care for her crop. Pandelis doesn’t water, doesn’t fertilize, and lets his crops grow as he chooses.
Now, I hope I’ve made this analogy clear, but I see each of our farmers as a sort of stone in the pillar. Pandelis is the ancient stone who can tell the history of a place just by looking at the shape of the marble and the location it was discovered. Arsenis is the new marble. While he still uses the thoughts and concepts brought by ancient farmers, he realizes that things do need to move forward. Finally, even though Elena may not be a perfect mixture of old and new, she uses a mixture of methods that do make her stand out as a sort of “mixed age” pillar.
For me, what I gained today is a greater idea of how deeply rooted we are in our past. While it may be good for us to move forward, we still need to pay respect to the way things were done in the past. Even as we stride further and further into the future, our history stands to prove itself to be the anchor of our civilization. Don’t forget the past because it may just hold the key to the future.
Written by Hunter Keilman