Ancient Greece invigorates the mind with images of heroism, triumph and tragedy. What other people have influenced the modern Western world (minus the slavery, of course) in such a profound way? Euclid proscribed a geometry none could compromise or add to for a millennium-and-a-half, and secret sects guarded the Greek fruits of mathematics as proof of their worth, perhaps even the worth of their proofs...
But what strange wonders did cease when the industrial middle ages caused these abstract acrobatics to be malformed into mechanisms of human movement? What did the adoption of the '0' do to us all, as it made the possible of immeasurable calculations? Unknown and unknowable vistas that redefined a Christian God and made a small word of life. Specialization worked at cross purposes to the whole man, and perhaps it can be argued the same became true of the environment man found himself creating by his removed self.
What criticisms Poseidon would make of the many rafts cast into his sea as he watched a launch from calm into a maelstrom of complexity. His tempest fracturing even the worthiest vessels behind the peaks and troughs of his sea borne riddles. Now we're riding high. Now we're riding low. Now I see you. Now I don't. And all the stomach of a tossing pot.
Now that we've gotten rid of DDT and the Bald Eagle is coming off the Endangered Species List we have annual growth greater than 9 per cent in China accompanied by a growing cloud of carbon dioxide/monoxide and particulate obscuring a lens more worried about military mass than consumption and rampant Western ideals.
Who is accounting for a 180 year schedule to allow these clouds to dissipate even if combustion for power stopped in less than 20 years? Poseidon keeps stirring with his trident and your stomach is churning. If everyone else is on the same ride who is left holding the bucket?
No comments:
Post a Comment