The Ponte Sisto in Rome is over 500 years old. The city of Rome is far older and the capital of a key civilization in historical Europe. The ideas that built the ancient city (whose ruins still intrigue today) are still relevant after much struggle and change. Great societies involve expressing their collective spirit through culture, building, language and institutions. Like all of life, they rise and fall.
The struggle for ideas, principles and a search for truth that power people's endeavors, is expensive. But therein lies growth. Rest in achievement and power, decline occurs.
The rise of any "Caesar" is a sign that principles that lift the individual and collective spirit are being surrendered to protect "achievement". That's because we become too busy guarding the past to achieve a future. Much like the bridge: past beauty can be admired. But the process that made it should be multiplied, improved and expanded. The artistry of the search, the struggle to express our spirit.
Albert Camus: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." To ignore this need to be free is declination. "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
Friedrich Nietzsche
An old photo of a time gone by a Hong Kong street photographer. This city is by no means romantic, Frantic, messy, proud, efficient but romance is not a goal for most people. Yet romance is about moments when the light falls on the mundane. It is quiet, unpretentious and aspires to be... to live. Because it is about hope and dreams, romance is not static. It is to be enjoyed and to inspire us to love and to go forward. Peace despite the stress. It all depends on how we choose to light up our lives. Lighting.
I feel like this snail because I no longer need to run around to feel fulfilled. The rain is just as enjoyable as the Sun. Taking things a little slowly to avoid the rush to profit. Learning to see and hear what is going on. Thinking about what is important. Making choices that improve my life and those around me. Enjoying the company and solitude.
There is beauty in the quiet solitude and being cleansed by the water of life.
Reason is dangerous. It is the basis of freedom. Universities were the temples of reason which helped fuel the thinking, discovery and technological breakthroughs that began with a period of history called the Renaissance. It was the rebirth of the ideal of human spirit free of the shackles of superstition and unverified faith. The good it produced was a period of growth, exploration and building that produced our current economies and nations.
The danger is when freedom threatens the basis of power. When power is based on control and not inspiration, those who value reason, freedom and have something to contribute, will protest. The powerful have resorted to oppression, authoritarianism, control, discrimination, victory over reason. Hitler wrote about this: “The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.”
Poikilothermic (cold blooded) animals like frogs whose body temperature is that of their surroundings, can be cooked by putting them in cool water and gradually heating it. They won't struggle. This is the case in any group that chooses to manipulate instead of fostering the spirit. Children unfortunately are the most vulnerable. That's why Hitler wrote: “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
The picture shows Stockholm whose Renaissance architecture is so beautiful. Freedom based on inspiring each other to progress based on expressing the human spirit of love, discovery, expression, hope, dreams... is like the rainbow that appears so rarely. Freedom like rainbows needs a cloudy sky and a little sunshine.
If history is any indication, reason can make beauty and even our mistakes can be overcome.
It's not about applause. Although Hollywood will use it to express glory and accomplishment by a crowd cheering and clapping, even if you look at how good film is made, hard things must be overcome to get the celebratory experience. That is why those who have not gone through real hardships (that are out of your own control, that consume your passion and test your faith) applause will seem empty and hopeless. This loss of hope and meaning, is why fame can destroy lives while making lots of money.
So the picture is what I see. There are clouds ahead but the Sun is still shining inside. It is hope and faith that we can find a better way forward. Hardship still hurts. But the glory is already shining without the cheering or applause. If that does happen, it is only expressing how discovery and enjoyment exists in forging the way ahead with your friends.
My fear has changed. Panic has changed to awe. Waves and storms have become more of a challenge than things to avoid. I'm eager to go through the hard things to discover what's waiting beyond them.
In Chaim Potok's "The Chosen" there are some of my favorite quotes. One of them is:
" A man is born into this world with only a tiny spark of goodness in him. The spark is God, it is the soul; the rest is ugliness and evil, a shell. The spark must be guarded like a treasure, it must be nurtured, it must be fanned into flame. It must learn to seek out other sparks, it must dominate the shell. Anything can be a shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, laziness, brutality, and genius. Yes, even a great mind can be a shell and choke the spark."
This is very much my personal quest from childhood to my middle age and so it goes. But silence is where I discovered how I'm born and am saved.
" You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it....
You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture. It doesn't always talk. Sometimes - sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then. But you have to."
This is what prompted me to blog. I see beauty life peace joy love hope freedom in the silence of the Universe in which our tiny speck of earth exists and sustains our world. Somehow there is meaning in our finite existence.
" I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life."
Although I am not physically small, I've always felt small. I always knew I'm not "all that".Yet I do feel appreciated. I love life and the moments of engagement between people. Discovery is magical. The video gives us an inkling of how immense the universe is and how rare our life on earth really is.
I believe there are mysteries that touch on why and how our lives matter in this seemingly infinite expanse of Space in which our world is just a nano speck of dust. Somehow we can live enjoyable lives. Some will say it is all pointless because how can our tiny size and petty influence matter in such an expansive Universe.
Yet it feels like life is worth living each day we wake up, if only to admire the truth to be uncovered in the world. To survive, to contribute our "two cents" and to inspire. It can be fun, enjoyable and uplifting. You just have to look.
Labour (labor) is both love and hate. Most depend on it to pay the bills. The rich need it to support a lifestyle. And many are still exploited for cheap labour. It is a fact of life. Manual labor is needed. And it has driven the industrial age which has fueled the 20th Century's ups and downs.
As more and more people are educated and have access to information, the backlash from dissatisfied workers continue. The clip from the movie "Reds" romanticizes one of the revolutions fueled by workers and ideals.
The tension between the need to make a living and to become the human being that we yearn to become, will only grow stronger. As more people have enough to eat, learn, see opportunities and create, the tension will only grow. The social contracts of our parents become obsolete or need adjustment faster than ever.
Yes, it is chaotic. Organised meetings, schedules and curricula that governed us in our youth is failing to prepare us for the creative future. It is a matter of time when manual labour will be given to automation (which many fear are robotic androids) will replace more and more of human labour. For those who loose their menial or repetitive jobs, it is a shock and loss.
But this does free us to find new ways to survive, create value and learn. Gone is the dream of working the same type of job for life to retire to a life of leisure. I'm not sure if it was ever a realistic dream either practically or emotionally. Humans are always too unpredictable by nature to do one thing forever. Is this not the horror of a prison?
Labour is sweet if we are free to think, to choose, to create, be ourselves and enjoy. With Informatics and automation, led by humans who are continuously assessing rethinking and enjoying the change, we have a chance to outgrow the revolutionary events that have horrified the last Century.
The main problem was that social models failed to catch up to the human change. And pent up anger in individuals gets passed on to groups, which is what society is made up of.
Media is now democratic in that just about anyone can change it. Buzz, popularity, fans, are called "viral" and no longer centralized. Barring attempts to fence off the Internet, I believe "Pandora's Box" has been opened. Just as it is near impossible to get toothpaste back into it's tube, the momentum of change in an age of Information began with the PC and has surpassed it so that the technology is opaque. Like electricity and distribution losing it's novelty in the 20th Century, Informatics and the machines that carry it, will loose its glamour quickly.
Work, labour and value are about to change forever, without an outright in-your-face revolution. But the video is romantic none-the-less singing about a utopia that was impossible to achieve.
