From my house, I have a breathtaking view of the sea and its waves crashing against the rock called the Galet. On this rock have been enthroned in dispersed order for a century and a half, small buildings formerly reserved for cod fishermen.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
This view of a universe that is both real and ghostly, like a living painting that changes with time and light, I enjoy every day. I cast a furtive glance at it as I pass the window, but more often than not, it’s sitting on my terrace that I daydream, letting myself be impregnated by the beauty of the world.
A few random tourists who have reached the end of Route 138, 1400 kilometers long, occasionally come to interrupt my meditations to admire this heritage jewel.
But the word “admire” is a bit strong. Most of them barely have time to take a shot and presto!
We’re back on the road for the next item on the checklist. They would have had the same experience by uploading a photo (of much better quality) on the web and would have saved hundreds of liters of fossil fuel.
Here is in this daily anecdote, all that makes me despair of the human species.
This inability for so many people to project themselves outside themselves as only the human brain manages to do, not to flee reality, but to better grasp it.
On a larger scale, I risk witnessing this distressing phenomenon once again as NASA has just unveiled the first images taken by the James Webb telescope. Never before seen images of the Universe in which we live and which risk revealing to us one day, aspects of reality that we do not even suspect.
And yet, all of this will have gone unnoticed for most. The most curious will have taken a look at the images published in the morning paper or broadcast in the 45-second topo on television news. Then they will be back to doing what beings do who grope their way through life, ticking off a list that, like a black hole, will eventually swallow them whole.