Contemplating this World

 

"The sea-shore is a
sort of neutral ground,
a most advantageous point from
which to contemplate this world."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Omnitensional Integrity

"The word tensegrity is an invention: it is a contraction of tensional integrity. Tensegrity describes a structural-relationship principle in which structural shape is guaranteed by the finitely closed, comprehensively continuous, tensional behaviors of the system and not by the discontinuous and exclusively local compressional member behaviors.

...

The integrity of the whole structure is invested in the finitely closed, tensional-embracement network, and the compressions are local islands. Elongated compression tends to deflect and fail. Compressions are disintegrable because they are not atomically solid and can permit energy penetration between their invisibly amassed separate energy entities.

...

Tension structures arranged by man depend upon his purest initial volition of interpretation of pure principle. Tension is omnidirectionally coherent. Tensegrity is an inherently nonredundant confluence of optimum structural-effort effectiveness factors.

...

All structures, properly understood,
from the solar system to the atom,
are tensegrity structures.
Universe is omnitensional integrity."

- Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983)
Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking

Twilight of the Soul

"It was in dreams that first I stole
With gentle mastery o'er her mind—
In that rich twilight of the soul,
When reason's beam, half hid behind
The clouds of sleep, obscurely gilds
Each shadowy shape that Fancy builds—
'Twas then by that soft light I brought
Vague, glimmering visions to her view,—
Catches of radiance lost when caught,
Bright labyrinths that led to naught,
And vistas with no pathway thro';—
Dwellings of bliss that opening shone,
Then closed, dissolved, and left no trace—
All that, in short, could tempt Hope on,
But give her wing no resting-place;
Myself the while with brow as yet
Pure as the young moon's coronet,
Thro' every dream still in her sight.
The enchanter of each mocking scene,
Who gave the hope, then brought the blight,
Who said, "Behold yon world of light,"
Then sudden dropt a veil between!"

- Thomas Moore (1478 - 1535)
The Loves of The Angels

de Chirico's Dreams

"To become truly immortal,
a work of art must escape all human limits:
logic and common sense will only interfere.
But once these barriers are broken,
it will enter the realms of
childhood visions and dreams.

...

There are more puzzles in the
shadow of a man walking under
the sun than in all past,
present, and future religions."

- Giorgio de Chirico (1888 - 1978)

Note. This was a "quick grab" I took with my iPhone a few months ago when my wife and I were wandering around underground at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.; specifically, the S. Dillon Ripley Center, the entrance to which is easy to miss (at least for folks that don't live near D.C.), since it's topside view is remarkably unobtrusive and does not present itself as "anything special." After you enter the domed structure and go down a few levels, you may be amazed to find a massive space that contains conference centers, art studios, offices, and galleries. (The only reason I know of its existence is that I was invited to give a presentation in one of underground spaces about 20 years ago.) The football-field-sized room on the bottom level also provides an underground pathway to both the African Art Museum and the Sackler Gallery of the National Museum of Asian Art. The iPhone picture shows a part of the south side of the central staircase/elevator column that we took to descend (and looking up from where the escalator ends on the lower level). The geometry and lighting reminded me of de Chirico's works. The picture can also serve as a reminder to photographers (young/old, beginner/seasoned,...) that interesting images can be discovered literally everywhere.

Time is a Sea

"Time is all-embracing. Everything is in time. When is four o'clock? In time. When did Socrates live? In time. When will you keep still? In time. How can time hold so much? Time is very big. The fishes are in the water. The ships are in the sea. The stars are in the sky. The birds are in the air. And all things, fishes and water, and birds and air, and stars and sky are in time. Time is immense. Without water fish cannot swim. Without air birds cannot fly. Without sky the stars cannot shine. The water carries the fish, the air carries the birds. The sky carries the stars. Water, air, and sky are buoyant. And water and air and sky are themselves buoyant, buoyed, in buoyantest time. Time is all-embracing, all-embuoyant. And if, now, everything is in time, is time also in all things? Are not all things time-embracing? Mutual love! It is so. Time permeates all things. Lift the tiny scales of little fishes, time is there. Examine the entrails of birds, time is there. Tiresias knew. And in the hottest regions of the stars, time is there. In the drop of water, in the breath of air, in a patch of sky, time is there. Time permeates all things. And now we can also understand the words: 'on which we and all the universe swim.' For as fish swim in the water and birds swim in the air and the stars swim in the sky, so all swimming in the water and all swimming in the air and all swimming in the sky are swimmings in time, the sea, air, sky, of time. Time is a sea, an air, a sky. "

-  O. K. Bouwsma (1898 - 1978)
The Mystery of Time

Fading Afterglow of Creation

"Nearly a hundred thousand million stars are turning in the circle of the Milky Way, and long ago other races on the worlds of other suns must have scaled and passed the heights that we have reached. Think of such civilizations, far back in time against the fading afterglow of Creation, masters of a universe so young that life as yet had come only to a handful of worlds. Theirs would have been a loneliness we cannot imagine, the loneliness of gods looking out across infinity and finding none to share their thoughts.

...

Here, in the distant future,
would be intelligence.

...

So they left a sentinel,
one of millions they have
scattered throughout the Universe,
watching over all worlds with
the promise of life. It was
a beacon that down the ages
has been patiently signaling the
fact that no one had discovered it."

- Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008)

The Sentinel

The Essential Doesn't Change

"We should turn resolutely towards Nature.
...
By all means, nothing simpler.
It’s the natural order.
...
Let us do something, while we have the chance!
It is not every day that we are needed...
To all mankind they were addressed,
those cries for help still ringing in our ears!
But at this place, at this moment of time,
all mankind is us, whether we like it or not.
Let us make the most of it,
before it is too late!
...
We always find something, eh,
to give us the impression we exist.
...
There’s no lack of void.
...
The essential doesn't change."

- Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)
Waiting for Godot