City on the River (上江)
City on the river. I called it “Shang Jiang,” like “Shanghai” (city on the sea).
The river. It brings us back to nature. It makes us aware of our mortality.
It’s our fear of death that makes us destroy nature with concrete and steel.
Control. We must deceive ourselves into thinking we can control nature, and,
ultimately, our own destiny. We defy death by attempting to control nature.
But the lesson lost on generation after generation is we can’t, and we all die, eventually.
Technology. It’s related to death. Technology is a floating glimpse in everyone’s mind. The moment you accept one technology, it’s replaced by another. It’s a distraction from death. We fail by clinging to impermanence (either technology or death).
Laughter. Technology is laughing at us. We buy Windows 95, install it company-wide, use it, have problems with it, then we throw it away and replace it with something newer.
Fools. We run, jump, go this way, then that, like senseless fools. Technology gives us the illusion of control, but it controls our behavior. Just look at all of the things we do to service our machines.
End. I pour a glass of water over the ventilation holes in my computer monitor. The machine short circuits, but it isn’t over — at least not until I decide what I value and what I think.
I think about the river — about its impermanence, about death, and about life.
-1996
Comments
Post a Comment