Collective Nostalgia
The importance of Venice. (WIP)
And Polo said: "Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it.
Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little."
Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little."
I wondered what was the sense of the naming in those very different places. Suddenly a Marco Polo’s quote came to my mind - “Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice” Are we trying to save something or to reproduce a specific situation of Venice? Was Venice the absolute, the ONE, human city, which has created a timeless longing of it?And if so, how would a new one could be created in such a time? Since somehow, every new one seems to resemble the original one less and less, but all the younger ones, seem to resemble each other? If the human brain is capable of forming collective memories, is Venice one of these cases? If we are able to have collective memories, are we able to feel collective nostalgia towards these memories? Is the recreation of Venice a constant try to recreate that feeling that was existing then? Is it a constant search to respond to that nostalgia? Memories occur when specific groups of neurons are reactivated. In the brain, any stimulus results in a particular pattern of neuronal activity—certain neurons become active in more or less a particular sequence. During memory recall, there is a replaying of neural activity that was originally generated in the brain during a specific event. This echoes the brain's perception of that specific event which is not completely identical to that event. In this way, the brain remembers the information and details of the event.
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You’ll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.
Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
C.P. Cavafy, The city
