To all my readers, take your time to read this extract and do some critical thinking.
A young child sits building sandcastles in a sandbox. It constantly builds something new, something which it treasures for only a moment before it knocks it all down again. In the same way Time has been given a planet to play with. This is where the history of the world is written, this is where the events are engraved - and smoothed all over. This is where life bubbles like in a witch's cauldron. One day we'll be modelled here, too - from the same brittle material as our ancestors. The wind of Time blows through us, carries us and is us - then drops us again. We are conjured up and tricked away. There is always something lying and brewing in anticipation of taking our place. Because we're not standing on solid ground, we're not even standing on sand - we are sand.
You cannot hide from Time. You can hide from kings and emperors, and possibly from God, but you can't hide from Time. Time follows our every move, because everything around us is immersed in this transient element.
Time doesn't pass, and Time doesn't tick. We are the ones who pass, and our watches tick. Time eats its way through history as silently and relentlessly as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It topples great civilisations, gnaws at ancient monuments, and wolfs down generation after generation. That's why we speak of the "ravages of time." Time chews and chomps - and we are the ones between its jaws.
For the fleeting moment, we are part of a furious swarm. We run around on earth as thought it was the most obvious thing of all. You saw how the ants craled and crept up at the Acropolis! But everything will disappear. It will disappear and be replaced with new multitudes, because people are always standing in line. Shapes and masks come and go, and new ideas are always popping up. Themes are never repeated, and a composition never shows up twice... There is nothing as complicated and precious as a person, but we are treated like a trash.
We skip around on earth like characters in a fairy tale. We nod and smile at each other as if to say, "Hi there, we're living at the same time! We're in the same reality - or the same fairy tale..." Isn't that incredible? We live on a planet in this universe, but we we'll be swept out of orbit again. Abracadabra - and we're gone!
If we had lived in another century, we would have shared our lives with different people. Today we can easily nod and smile and say hello to thousands of our contemporaries: "Hi, there! How strange we should be living at exactly the same time." Or perhaps I bump into someone and open a door and shout: "Hi, soul!"
We're alive, you know, but we live this only once. We open our arms and declare that we exists, but then we are swept aside and thrust into the depths of history. Because we are disposable. We are part of an eternal masquerade where the masks come and go. But we deserve more. You can I deserve to have our names engraved into something eternal, something that won't be washed away in the great sandbox............
Exerpt of The Solitaire Mystery
my comments:
and ode to all the philosophers and great thinkers of this world throughout the course of history, for ideas and thoughts wont be washed away by the ravages of time. as plato mentioned about the 'world of ideas', thoughts are eternal because idea by our predecessors are handed down generations to generations through the transmission of knowledge and it is kept immortal that way.
and another ode to all notable people in the passage of time who managed to have their names carved on the eternal slab of marble called 'History'. despite all people and things pass away, those great men of history are still remembered generations later for of all the remarkable things they've did. for famous people like Napoleon, Williams Shakespeare, and Otto von Bismarck are made immortale in the minds of many due to their notable deeds and works as our contempories continued to sing the epics of past heros. and, unlike the rest, are spared from the ravages of time.
the solitaire mysetery by jostein gaarder is such a great read but its such a pity that the due is up and its time for me to return that book.
2:52 PM;
old man ist tot (old man is dead)
old man ist tot (old man is dead)
