Not to bite my man F.Scott Fitzgerald, but in my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Pops used to tell me, "there ain't nothing new under the sun." At the time, my wide-eyed innocence prevented me from realizing how apposite the maxim was. Everything seemed novel and original from my prepubescent perspective.
Now that I'm older, I get the salience of my Pop's words. The glittering technology that garnishes our life may be new, but the impulses from our reptilian brains are as old as dirt. The internet is one of the most staggering achievements in human history, and we made sure to stuff every inch of it with porn. (Where did you think that link was leading you to? C'mon, folks, get your head out of the gutter.)
Despite internalizing that adage from my Pop, I frequently forget how all-encompassing it is. Whenever my mind conjures up images of Ancient civilizations, I subconsciously beautify them to match the legendary stature that history and Hollywood ascribe to them. Even though I can intellectually comprehend that Ancient Rome had ghettos equivalent to the Southside of Chicago, it's still difficult to envision. Thanks to the video linked above, I got a clearer mental image of how bad neighborhoods in Ancient Rome might have looked.
