the familiar is ignored

there must be a quote out there talking about how the most familiar things become ordinary and unnoticeable.

well, for italy, it was like beauty was ignored. or they're just so used to having the most incredible painting, the most graceful sculptures, the most vivid frescoes on every street, alley, corner, building that they don't need to see it anymore.

how can they live like that???

that's spoken with envy, not derision, by the way. if i lived in italy, i can't imagine how many cameras i'd wear out, memory i'd consume, money i'd spend on for film and pictures. i couldn't possibly ever get used to seeing a fountain and just seeing a fountain, not the art on it.

part of me was open-mouthed over the art, and the other was amazed that the italians were just passing it by. i held up traffic, looking at the stuff on the walls. they just breezed by. next to it, were spray-painted graffiti, people peeing on the side of the road.

it was a clash of modernity with antiquity.

but no matter how ignored it is, the fact that it's there will forever blow the minds of people. we just need one second to take a look at it.