the end of the world

The end of the world, the end of an era. When a sportsman or woman who you've grown up watching retires and you remember when they first appeared on the scene like a shooting star. Things will never be the same, but they always are. The end of space exploration, perhaps. Something profound, the desire of humankind to break free, ask questions beyond a narrow utilitarian framework, will been lost if that's true. Life itself is a series of losses, departures, and there's no getting over that, no tying of the threads together, no rhyme or reason, no Buddhist mantra, no fana. The end of the news of the world that the pseudo-left's moral brigade is gloating over right now. Yet few ask the more interesting (apolitical) question: what is this fascination with the sensational, with exposure, the digging up of the sordid details of other people's messy and often ludicrous lives? But watching the powerful squirm is itself worth watching, worth being made into a story.

Music is one of the few remaining bridges linking people.

---Ry Cooder.

And when bridges fall, then what? (No, can't go back to Kadare's book on bridges..er..I bet some of you are wondering if I've ever actually completed reading a single book!). But bridges. What would Venice or London be without them? A city is, by definition, a number of bridges that span out, connecting. A monastery too, but in a different way.

"We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: solitude, hardship, exhaustion, death. We're proud of ourselves, in a way. But our enthusiasm is a sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos-we want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the cosmos. We are only seeking Man. We don't want Other Worlds. We want mirrors."

---Solaris.

Is this not the greatest of paradoxes, ironies? No sooner had we convinced ourselves that this is all we have, that this green and blue planet of ours is and had always been our true home and would always be inextricably tied up with our fate, than we had set into motion the mechanisms that would eventually lead to the fulfilment of the most ardent-and who knows, perhaps even the most ancient desire, the desire to escape from home.