What do I see?
I see two words: RESTORE & DESTROY
These words resemble each other, even though they mean quite the opposite. Both have six letters, so we might as well use them correctly for an expected outcome.
In the dictionary, an active word like “restore” means to bring back, return to its original condition, while “destroy” signifies to damage something so badly that it cannot be used. Same happens with our feelings or things that once were well nourished. A conscious mind has to be nourished with kind thoughts/actions. It’s true that “You are what you eat” but what can we do when it comes to historic buildings? “If we take care of things they last?”
Yes, they last through rules, education and people who are aware of what’s inside/around them. Taking care by creating established departments to preserve and continue a legacy of a beloved country. So the next issue we ask ourselves: How can people learn to love their own country? How can we pass love from generation to generation? What are we going to do when goodness won’t be attractive anymore?
I remember what Fred Rogers said: “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle”. We learn to love ourselves, to love our neighbour, to love a country, to love our legacy. As long as we don’t give up, we learn and conquer. We look back in the past, we talk about, we help, we imagine a new picture of it.
What can we do when a harsh history of a country damages heritage buildings by letting them rot?
While reading BBC online, a headline regarding Herculane Project caught my attention. What others say? An old abandoned building was standing right there, but nobody reacted, except two students who decided to rebuild what once was lost. It was an imperial spa resort visited for the first time in 1852 by Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth “Sissi”.
Baile Herculane was doomed to decompose, but a new generation of people born after The 1989 Revolution who have not stepped a single foot into this place in its glorious days are willing to make an effort and bring it back to life.
The restauration of Herculane’s spa needs €12m. They already have a team of 25 volunteers involved in this project.
I see young and ambitious minds who are trying to repair what once was lost.
I am impressed about these good initiatives happening in Romania.
We can “destroy” years of abandonment in a good way by informing ourselves and the ones that come after us that architectural beauties can be restored and protected. It’s enough for one person to do the right thing and the rest will follow.
I don’t receive anything to talk about things that matter, I’m not doing advertising. I prefer to keep it simple, observe and remain Mijournali.
