A work in progress: (for lack of anything better to post)
We are drowning in a sea of numbers.
We arch our backs and stretch out our arms as far as they will reach, and with all our heart we try to swim through a cold ocean of numbers, statistics, points and intrest rates.
Breathing rapidly, we swallow down salty figures with air and our lungs grow heavy. The taste of data chill and acrid.
How will we reach the shore? Is there even a shore left?
We cannot remember how it was that we got this far out from land. We have forgotten the horizon.
Ahh, the horizon. Where the Earth and sky cleave together, is the only true center of the world. No matter where we travel, no matter the changing landscape, the horizon is always the same.
Looking to the horizon we achieve perspective and become wise. Looking to the ground and to the sky separately we gain only abstract knowledge: particularities, details, so many pieces of an infinite broken puzzle.
But with perspective, fragments are joined and lines drawn. Extremes meet at the horizon, as do the fates of humankind. As earthbound mortals, the horizon is our only lasting perspective on human affairs.
The lines of the horizon are always equally relative and fixed. The horizon line is the only constant that changes from mountaintop to desert plateau, hillside to valley, from the inside of a fast travelling vehicle to the stationary seat of a rocking chair.
The horizon greets our inquisitive glance with an ancient answer. This far you are, any farther you are not.
The horizon makes distance less distant without drawing it unnaturally close. To lose sight of the horizon is to walk around spying the world as if through binoculars. The immediate becomes blurred beyond recognition. We mistake molehills for mountains. The far away lurks confusingly near. Tomorrow precedes today.
To lead a telescopic life is also to be close to others without feeling their warmth. To have proximity without community. Telepresence without presence of mind.
To drown in a dark sea of numbers, under a bottomless bright night sky.
We are drowning in a sea of numbers.
We arch our backs and stretch out our arms as far as they will reach, and with all our heart we try to swim through a cold ocean of numbers, statistics, points and intrest rates.
Breathing rapidly, we swallow down salty figures with air and our lungs grow heavy. The taste of data chill and acrid.
How will we reach the shore? Is there even a shore left?
We cannot remember how it was that we got this far out from land. We have forgotten the horizon.
Ahh, the horizon. Where the Earth and sky cleave together, is the only true center of the world. No matter where we travel, no matter the changing landscape, the horizon is always the same.
Looking to the horizon we achieve perspective and become wise. Looking to the ground and to the sky separately we gain only abstract knowledge: particularities, details, so many pieces of an infinite broken puzzle.
But with perspective, fragments are joined and lines drawn. Extremes meet at the horizon, as do the fates of humankind. As earthbound mortals, the horizon is our only lasting perspective on human affairs.
The lines of the horizon are always equally relative and fixed. The horizon line is the only constant that changes from mountaintop to desert plateau, hillside to valley, from the inside of a fast travelling vehicle to the stationary seat of a rocking chair.
The horizon greets our inquisitive glance with an ancient answer. This far you are, any farther you are not.
The horizon makes distance less distant without drawing it unnaturally close. To lose sight of the horizon is to walk around spying the world as if through binoculars. The immediate becomes blurred beyond recognition. We mistake molehills for mountains. The far away lurks confusingly near. Tomorrow precedes today.
To lead a telescopic life is also to be close to others without feeling their warmth. To have proximity without community. Telepresence without presence of mind.
To drown in a dark sea of numbers, under a bottomless bright night sky.
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