"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight
and his reward is that he sees the dawn
before the rest of the world"
Oscar Wilde
Monday, April 19, 2010
Too smart and not nearly smart enough!
Without question we are a far too smart and not nearly smart enough for our own good - as we flail about helplessly as Mother Earth gently reminds us of our place in the grander scheme of things.
Read this from The Observer newspaper ...
Humbled by a volcano, we can only sit in wonder!
The eruption in Iceland and the ash cloud that has brought our airlines to a standstill give us a true picture of our standing in nature
For those whose plans have been disrupted and whose holidays have been aborted – or expensively prolonged – by the volcanic eruption in Iceland, the seismic spectacle is nothing to celebrate. There will be some travellers whose inability to get airborne is the source of real misery. They deserve the utmost compassion.
For most of us, however, the plume of ash and smoke rising from the beneath the Earth's crust, 30,000-feet tall, is cause only for awe, mixed perhaps with linguistic discomfort in trying to grapple with the volcano's name: Eyjafjallajökull. We are doubly humbled by Iceland's natural wonders and its orthography.
By colonising the space above our heads and above much of our continent, the eruption provides a reminder of our status in relation to our planet and over which we have arrogantly seized stewardship. We imagine ourselves its master and yet with one modest belch it hems us into our little island, sweeping instantly from the skies the aeroplane, which we consider to be an example of the irrepressible genius of our species.
When Eyjafjallajökull last erupted in 1822, man-made flight was a distant dream. We think so much has happened since then, so many lifetimes have been spent, and yet, in tectonic terms, the interval is nothing, a minuscule fraction of a blink to the volcano.
It would be crippling to retain that kind of perspective on a daily basis – anyone who set their watch by geological time would never get out of bed – but a glance at ourselves in proportion to the universe is salutary on occasion. It is worth imagining, for example, how exercised we would all be if the equivalent disruption had been caused by some human agency. If the threat of terror attack, industrial action or government ineptitude meant no planes could fly, a dense cloud of rebuke and indignation would fill the ether. But we cannot blame the volcano, only observe how liberating it is sometimes to be powerless before nature.
The Observer Editorials
Sun 18 Apr 2010
Read this from The Observer newspaper ...
Humbled by a volcano, we can only sit in wonder!
The eruption in Iceland and the ash cloud that has brought our airlines to a standstill give us a true picture of our standing in nature
For those whose plans have been disrupted and whose holidays have been aborted – or expensively prolonged – by the volcanic eruption in Iceland, the seismic spectacle is nothing to celebrate. There will be some travellers whose inability to get airborne is the source of real misery. They deserve the utmost compassion.
For most of us, however, the plume of ash and smoke rising from the beneath the Earth's crust, 30,000-feet tall, is cause only for awe, mixed perhaps with linguistic discomfort in trying to grapple with the volcano's name: Eyjafjallajökull. We are doubly humbled by Iceland's natural wonders and its orthography.
By colonising the space above our heads and above much of our continent, the eruption provides a reminder of our status in relation to our planet and over which we have arrogantly seized stewardship. We imagine ourselves its master and yet with one modest belch it hems us into our little island, sweeping instantly from the skies the aeroplane, which we consider to be an example of the irrepressible genius of our species.
When Eyjafjallajökull last erupted in 1822, man-made flight was a distant dream. We think so much has happened since then, so many lifetimes have been spent, and yet, in tectonic terms, the interval is nothing, a minuscule fraction of a blink to the volcano.
It would be crippling to retain that kind of perspective on a daily basis – anyone who set their watch by geological time would never get out of bed – but a glance at ourselves in proportion to the universe is salutary on occasion. It is worth imagining, for example, how exercised we would all be if the equivalent disruption had been caused by some human agency. If the threat of terror attack, industrial action or government ineptitude meant no planes could fly, a dense cloud of rebuke and indignation would fill the ether. But we cannot blame the volcano, only observe how liberating it is sometimes to be powerless before nature.
The Observer Editorials
Sun 18 Apr 2010
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