Varano Sand Sculpture Company LLC
~the Sultans Of Sand Worldwide~

     In today’s busy and rapidly changing world, full of not only the ages-old routines of the typical hustle and bustle of daily life in raising a family, or making a living in the local community, we also now see and experience communications and physical interactions with other people around the world at amazingly high rates of speed that were never even imagined as a distant possibility in all the days before just a few short decades ago –or certainly a hundred years or so, ago.
    The modern era of technological advances, allows many of us, including young children to be in touch with not only a lot more people and entertainments, but also businesses and leadership, all the time in so many new ways, from simple email, text messaging and telephone contact with loved ones who are far away, to buying household goods and services online and having them delivered to our own front door, to contacting one’s political leaders so that one may lobby one’s respective ideas and desires and in some cases, even to vote.  All of these things are available to modern humans like never before in recorded history.
   Social media is the prime example of a current paradigm that never existed until recently, which has tremendous impact on the world we live in.  In good ways for sure, but also in other ways that are less than wonderful.

   So, not just in the social order, per se’ but in all things with such technological advancements, comes many opportunities for good things (Love) but as ever is the case with the dualistic nature of balance on this plane of existence we call life, it also leaves open the door for the less-good aspects of humanity (evil) to also grow and spread.

   It was one thing, when the world seemed like such a much bigger place with vast horizons, and resources that appeared to be in almost limitless supply. Especially in primitive times. It was natural for social groups to be leery of outsiders or opposing groups in competition for all the typical human needs. Isolationism, nationalism, borders, cultures and religions were developed to protect people from the influence of other people precisely because the world was so vast and maybe a little scary, that we did not want to lose our ways or identity to others who might overtake us by either cultural influence or military might. Understandably at those times, protectionist attitudes were a common/natural development and this has always continued over the millennia.

     Today, when some may argue that we should know better, especially given our incredible technological advances since the industrial revolution, our physical world has changed dramatically in just the past couple of hundred years. But our collective psychology has, unfortunately not kept pace so much, to say the very least.


   In the big picture, we were never all that great as a species, in getting along with one another on the macro level. We seem to do relatively well in various in-groups of relative size, especially at the familial level, and to a lesser degree in community and nationalistically. But the further away we get from the family circles, the more that fluid social dynamic breaks down.  Why is that, exactly? It is a question that bears asking…

   For all our advances, today a problem with social media is that we were not quite to a point of more well-rounded and balanced interactions on the macro level, before the advent of instant mass communications, and now we have this great “toy” of social media that we may, as yet, not be quite mature enough (as a species) to really benefit from proportionately, as much as it is lamentably so very effective in dividing people.

   In the past, nations were so separated from each other that boundaries were perceived as immutable and cultural differences were accepted as normal. But today these notions of dividing lines and cultural norms blur and vary, often and a lot. Sometimes from day to day.

    Without question, life has always been at times challenging and full of situations that invariably have led to conflicts big and small, & they can be both personal as well as on a national level. So it is understandable that social mores and conventions developed from the time of early community and social development contained or included some basic codes of ethics and morality. Many of the familiar foundational tenets of most religions share an overall commonality of the basic ideas of the “Golden Rule” of doing unto others as you would have done to you. And, just as is the case with similarities existing in numerous different creationism stories from diverse religions, some of the other stories of camaraderie and civility contain similar themes.

 Here, in this, the 16th annual edition of the Jesolo Sand Nativity, the sub theme of a few such stories popularly known in Christianity as “Parables” are included in the mix of sculptures to see, that remind us to not lose sight of ideas relevant to a common sense of a genteel way of being, or morality, & how to comport oneself in a world that is today both; full of challenges and rife with opportunities.
  With these reminders of ancient guides which are as true today as they ever have been, it is hoped humanity can cooperate well, -or at least get along, from the perspective of the individual. By doing so, we can as individuals begin to be the change in the world that we would like, -or hope, to see. An age old ambition, and perhaps a lofty one. But it is ambition, none the less.  Where there is the will, there is a way. And as we know, where there is Life, there is also Hope. 





Peace, Love & Happiness
 
Rich Varano
Artistic Director
Sultans Of Sand Worldwide
www.SultansOfSand.com