This week it is my turn to present a challenge – and I mean to give us all a real” test”. I tend to use several pictures in my posts, and some of us often do – so the challenge is to use only ONE picture. One that you find important, meaningful to you, maybe sending a message – and then explain why you picked just that picture. It is not meant to be a ”favourite” picture of yours, not at all…so…

– here is mine.

This is a 13 year old picture from Segovia, Spain. I was walking this city street, eagerly looking for the famous aqueduct… and suddenly it appeared in front of me, the impressive, Roman construction going right through Segovia. I was left standing in the middle of the street, gasping, filled with awe. How small the modern buildings seemed! After some 5-10 minutes, two men, old friends I guess, came slowly walking by. Three legged – but strong.

Two major thoughts entered my mind. The importance of knowledge – never stop learning – and stay open and curious. (I was a teacher…) Then my thoughts started wandering.

I have seen several aqueducts on my travels – but nothing like this one. My greatest love is Pont du Gard in France, from a trip in 1976. The old Romans were skilled architects and builders, and although they had better mortar than ours, the Segovia aqueduct was built without it, just stones on top of stones. It was built in the first century AD to carry water to the city from mountain springs 17 kilometers away. The complete archade consists of 167 arches – and it was in use until 1973! Incredible.

Nothing we build today has the strength to last for 2000 years… I am sure. It should trouble us that we are losing old knowledge every day, and one day, maybe there will be no computers to ask. – Someone or something, someday will surely pull the plug. During my last working years, many of my student’s turned to Google instead of learning from books. Sad. Critical reading is taught in every subject in school, but somehow young people seem to believe too many things found on the internet…and forward things without checking their credibility. I also think it is wise not to stop learning things by heart – even the smallest things – and you will be exercising your mind and brain, keeping them alert.

My eyes followed the two old friends – how I would have loved to ask them about their lives, their world and their thoughts about the future! But, unfortunately I don’t speak good enough Spanish. And that is another thing we are losing – languages. It’s a fact that, if we lose a language we lose the culture connected to it as well. That is the way cultures are lost – in Sweden we are losing the Sami culture, because not many people speak their language anymore – despite diversity treasures like having more than 100 words for describing snow, and words from their nomad life with reindeer.

I wish we would listen more to older, experienced people. There is so much collected knowledge to treasure. Instead, if we listen to what they have experienced and what history has to tell us, we don’t seem to care about it and we certainly don’t learn from it. We should try harder to change that.

I believe parents have a great responsibility. Please take care of the knowledge handed down orally, written and worked by hand! Don’t wait until it is too late. Once gone – forever gone.

A big thank you to Patti for last week’s challenge Colour vs B&W – a brilliant possibility to exchange thoughts and experiences of how to look at editing and photography! In fact I decided to use B&W in this post because of what I learned. Life long learning is essential not to wither and grow old too early!

Don’t forget to link to this post when you participate, and use the Lens-Artist tag. We are looking forward to seeing your choices! Next week Sofia will be our host – be sure to visit her inspirational site to find out what she is up to!

Until then – please stay safe, kind and curious