Ozymandias

Someone named are empty---and I guess that's what she's running on---is complaining that I post too many pictures of myself online. She cites a number of 70 or so.

That made me think of this poem by Shelley that I found it posted on line recently---not having studied poetry in school. The special message it carried to the adult me, made me recognize the site where I stumbled on it as that of a fellow traveler. It is so utterly clear to see a friend from a not-friend now. I've never met are empty so I don't know what she is, or whether she's a she even. I'll focus on posting more pictures of friends in the future---with or without me---because that's good advice.

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.^[1]

This is the actual colossal fragment that inspired Shelley's poem. It is in Room 4 of the British Museum. I don't know the dimensions since I've never visited, but it is huge. Ozymandias represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses' throne name, User-maat-re Setep-en-re.

British Museum, Egyptian Sculpture, Colossal Bust of Ramesses II ‘Younger Memnon’ (1250 BC)

I just remembered something a woman said to me once and it sent a chill through me. She was the first wife of an international billionaire---make that the only wife, at the time she said it. Even though they had about fifteen properties all across the globe---most developed in the $100+ million range---he still liked to go out, and she didn't. She asked me once, "Why would I want to go out and be with people who just want what I have?"

She meant that literally---as in everybody. Like a high percentage of the super, super rich, she's wound up spending all of her time with people she employs. He on the other hand, went out and never came back.