On my recent trip to southern Italy, I visited some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. On the Amalfi Coast, I scaled steep hillsides bejeweled with pastel houses to arrive at lush gardens overlooking the glittering Mediterranean Sea. I wandered chic Roman streets that have cut through the center of powerful civilizations for millennia. In Sardinia, I walked across a beach of pearly quartz pebbles to plunge into the bluest water imaginable. And in Matera, I explored the eerie and enticing lunar landscape before retreating to my luxury cave hotel.
And everywhere I went, I watched people trying to capture this beauty. Women in elegant dresses posed at Instagram hot spots. Travelers swarmed the central piazza in Capri to sit at the same cafes as the rich and famous of generations past. And tour groups often seemed more interested in taking pictures of buildings and artifacts than learning the history behind them.
I’m tempted to write this as a criticism, but really, it’s just human nature. I’ve walked past enough portraits and sculptures of wealthy Romans over the last month to know that humans have always had an innate desire to be viewed by their peers as attractive and successful and to be remembered by future generations.
