"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home."
- Rumi, "The Tavern," Ch. 1:, p. 2, from "The Essential Rumi"
"Socrates: “Why do people think philosophy is bullsh*t? Let me put it this way - imagine you’re in a cave, all chained up so you can’t turn your body at all, and all you get to look at is this one wall. Some fools behind you are making shadow puppets using the light from a fire and making echo noises and that’s all you or anyone else chained up has seen or heard all your life. Sounds terrible, right? Except it’s all you’ve ever known, shadows and echoes, and that’s your whole world - there’s no way you could know that, really, you’re watching a slightly-improved M. Night Shyamalan film.
In fact, you get pretty good at understanding how the patterns in the show work, and everyone else chained up is like, ‘Holy sh*t bro, how did you know that that tree was going to fall on that guy?’ and you’re like, ‘It’s because I f*****g pay attention and I’m smart as sh*t.’ You’re the smartest of the chained, and they all revere you.”
Glaucon:“But Socrates, a tree didn’t really hit a guy. It’s all shadows.”
Socrates:“No sh*t, Glaucon, but you don’t know that. You think the shadows are real things. Everyone does. Now STFU and let me finish.
So eventually, someone comes and unchains you and drags you out of the cave. At first you’d say, ‘Seriously, what the f**k is going on?!’ Well, actually, at first you’d say, ‘HOLY SH*T MY EYES’ and you’d want to go back to the safe, familiar shadows.” But even once your eyes worked you wouldn’t believe them, because everything you ever thought was real is gone. You’d look at a tree, and say ‘That’s not a tree. I know trees. And you, sir, are no tree. THAT DOWN THERE is a tree.’ But you’re wrong. Down there is a shadow of a tree.
Slowly, as your eyes got better, you’d see more and more. Eventually, you’d see the sun, and realize that it’s the source of all light. You can’t see sh*t without the sun. And eventually, you’d figure it out. Something would click in your brain: ‘oh, sh*t, that IS a tree. F**k me. So… nothing in the cave was real? I feel like such an assh**e.’
But it’s not your fault, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Finally you’d want to go down and tell everyone about everything you’ve discovered. Except, and here’s the hilarious part, they think you’ve gone f*****g crazy.
You’d say, ‘Guys, real trees are green!’ and they’d say, ‘What the f**k is green? THAT is a tree over there.’ And you’d squint and look at the wall, but you know you’re f***ed because now you’re used to having sunlight, and now you can’t see sh*t. So they’d laugh at you, and agree that wherever it was that you went, no one should go there because it turns people into idiots.
Philosophy, same thing. The soul ascends and apprehends the forms, the nature of everything, and eventually the very Idea of Good that gives light to everything else. And then the philosopher has to go back to the cave and try to explain it to people who don’t even know what Green is, to say nothing of the Good. But the philosopher didn’t make up the Good, it was always there, and the only way to really make sense of it is to uncover it for yourself. You can’t force knowledge into a dumbass any more than you can force sight into a blind man.
So if you want to learn, be prepared for a difficult journey, and be prepared to make some mistakes. That’s okay, it’s all part of the process. True knowledge must be obtained the hard way, and some people just don’t want to see the light.”
"In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well."
"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured- disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui- in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off."
"Change. But start slowly, because direction is more important than speed. Sit in another chair, on the other side of the table. Later on, change tables. When you go out, try to walk on the other side of the street. Then change your route,
walk calmly down other streets, observing closely the places you pass by. Take other buses. Change your wardrobe for a while; give away your old shoes
and try to walk barefoot for a few days– even if only at home. Take off a whole afternoon to stroll about freely, listening to the birds or the noise of the cars. Open and shut the drawers and doors with your left hand. Sleep on the other side of the bed. Then try sleeping in other beds. Watch other TV programs, read other books, live other romances– even of only in your imagination. Sleep until later. Go to bed earlier. Learn a new word a day. Eat a little less, eat a little more, eat differently; choose new seasonings,
new colors, things you have never dared to experiment.
Lunch in other places, go to other restaurants, order another kind of drink
and buy bread at another bakery. Lunch earlier, have dinner later, or vice-versa. Try something new every day: a new side, a new method, a new flavor, a new way, a new pleasure, a new position.
Pick another market, another make of soap, another toothpaste. Take a bath at different times of the day. Use pens with different colors. Go and visit other places. Love more and more and in different ways. Even when you think that the other will be frightened, suggest what you have always dreamed about doing when you make love.
Change your bag, your wallet, your suitcases, buy new glasses, write other poems. Open an account in another bank, go to other cinemas, other hairdressers, other theaters, visit new museums.
Change. And think seriously of finding another job, another activity,
work that is more like what you expect from life, more dignified, more human. If you cannot find reasons to be free, invent them: be creative. And grab the chance to take a long, enjoyable trip – preferably without any destination. Try new things. Change again. Make another change. Experiment something else. You will certainly know better things and worse things than those you already know,
but that does not matter. What matters most is change, movement, dynamism, energy. Only what is dead does not change – and you are alive."
"The Economic Collapse is Here - No One Saw it Coming!"
"The economic collapse of 2025 is hitting harder than anyone expected, and in this video, I break down the latest shocking stats and surveys that highlight just how tough things have become. From skyrocketing insurance cuts to plummeting home sales and job losses driven by AI, no one is untouched. Did you know up to one in three drivers now lack insurance? Or that restaurants, manufacturing, and even gaming industries are collapsing under economic strain? It’s a tough time, but you're not alone, and there are steps we can all take to get through this."
“The most dangerous man to any government,” argued Henry Louis Mencken, “is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.” “Almost inevitably,” continued Baltimore’s sage…“He comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable… Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
It appears these United States are rolling out increasing numbers of dangerous and decent men. That is, of men able to think things out, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos… Men who have come to the conclusion that the government they live under is dishonest, insane, intolerable… men ashamed of the government they live under.
They are not ashamed of their country, mind you - though some may be. They are merely ashamed of the government that crowns it. For instance:
They are ashamed of the government that wrecked their lives and livelihoods and jailed them in over a manageable virus.
They are ashamed of the government that would mandate them to take aboard an experimental vaccine without adequate testing - a vaccine that has proven destructive to many - and fatal to some.
They are ashamed of the government that spawned a horrific inflation and branded it “transitory.”
They are ashamed of the government that cynically labels a $700 billion spending bill the “Inflation Reduction Act.”
They are ashamed of the government that trumpets social values often alien to their own.
They are ashamed of the government that censors them and tapes their mouths shut when they dissent.
They are ashamed of the government that tells them their national borders are “secure,” while millions jump them illegally.
They are ashamed of the government that elevates foreign and corporate interests above their own.
Here we name but some sources of ashamement. Many others exist - be assured. Are these torts accurate in every detail? Perhaps not always and in every case.
A man convinced of government treachery anywhere will tend to see it everywhere. Yet the fact is: Millions of Americans believe they are being bossed and gooned by an overbearing, abusive and rampaging government. They further believe they are languishing at the base of the economic pyramid… while the pyramid’s tip lives grandly - nearly royally - at their expense. And they are hot to change it.
The “people” give the orders in democracy, say the civics books. Yet millions and millions of Americans have come to believe that unelected and unaccountable judges, bureaucrats, pettifoggers, understrappers and jacks-in-office do the primary bossing. Thus they are prepared to heave their civics book into the hellbox.
“This is a representative republic,” some may shout, “not a democracy. We elect officials to whom we entrust these decisions. If we disagree with them, we get to vote the bums out next time. That’s how it works.” Just so. Yet when one bum goes out, another generally comes in. Not always - not always - but often enough.
And if a good man somehow makes it in? He must acquire an extravagant taste for boot polish. He must go along… else he will not get along. He will find himself in a sort of political no-man’s land, obscure and futureless. In most instances he succumbs.
Meantime, elites sob about this or that threat to “our democracy.” Yet deeper examination reveals their commitment to democracy is highly… conditional. They do not trust “the people” to do the “right thing.” The Bible-thumpers will ban abortion if you let them vote on it, say the pro-choicers. The isolationists will pull up the overseas stakes, cry the American exceptionalists… and withdraw from the world.
The gold bugs and the cryptocurrency kooks will topple the monetary system, lament our monetary mandarins. Anti-democratic hellcats will fan misinformation and disinformation among the red-necked and stump-toothed, yell the censors.
Yet the entire lot of them sing hosannas to “democracy.” In reality, they believe no more in democracy than they believe in honesty. They believe merely in their own higher vision - and the power to enforce it.
Are we too harsh? Your editor is a man of remarkable equanimity and serenity - if he can say it for himself. Yet here he is insufficiently harsh in all likelihood. Somehow the business seems beyond all human agency, beyond all control. ‘What can I do?’ a fellow wonders, defeated. He may cluck-cluck his opposition to it all - but he is largely a man resigned. His only resort is the voting booth. Will it yield the change he seeks?
It is unlikely. It will instead represent the supreme triumph of hope over experience…Below, we show you why anyone seeking high office should be feared - but also pitied. Read on to learn about the strange, sad life of a politician..."
"The Sad and Strange Life of a Politician"
By Brian Maher
"A man hunting high office is a man to be watched. And the higher the office he seeks, the closer he must be watched. For this is an ambitious man. And as one fellow who raged with ambition - Napoleon Bonaparte - stated: "Those endowed with (great ambition) may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them."
We generally place our money on “very bad acts.” That is because we have canvassed the history books. Yet a man after high office - in a democracy specifically -- is also a man to be pitied. Why pitied?
All dignity, all honor, all pride, he must sacrifice in exchange for power. That is because he must face election. Consider the roles that must combine in him: He must be a magician pulling rabbits from top hats. He must be a seller of pre-owned - that is, of used automobiles. He must likewise be a street beggar. He must beg for the franchise of those whom he considers his lessers. After all… if they were not his lessers they would not require his leadership.
And so you have the aspirant of high office - by turns showman, confidence man and beggar. Thus this man is a preposterous formula - a man to be both feared and pitied at once. Is this the description of a respectable man? Of a normal man? It is not. Yet it is the description of a man seeking high office. It is the description of a man who believes he is a big deal in this world. It is the description of a man who believes he should lead you. And that you should follow him. But who respects a follower? Not his leader.
What Politicians and Salesmen Really Think of You: A political candidate and a salesman are brothers. The one solicits your trade, the other your vote. Each pitches his whim-whim at you until he fetches his game. Assume you end up in the bag. He is thrilled to have your sale, to have your vote. But he merely regards you as a means to a rewarding end. He disesteems you inwardly. Behind his flashlight smile he disdains you. You have been duped by his razmataz.
He regards you as an all-day sucker. Who then does he respect? He respects the man who refuses the sale, the man who yawned in his face or who voted against him. That is, he respects the man who sizes him accurately. This man he will look straight in the eye... and extend a firm handshake of respect.
An Intoxicating yet Horrifying Power: Picture our office-seeker in his natural habitat. He stands upon a podium gazing out upon a rustling crowd. What does he see? He does not see individuals. He sees rather a vast, undifferentiated mass. That is, he sees a forest - but no trees. Or to switch metaphors: He is addressing a wheat field. His whoops and shouts raise a mighty breeze. The entire field sways in the wind, this way then that way, back then forth... on his command. He is at once intoxicated by the power he wields over the great human mass, yet horrified that it can be so easily throttled up. It is fearsome to behold.
Pressing the Flesh: Our candidate must also appear directly among smaller chunks of this human mass. He considers them his inferiors, yet pretends to be their equals. Their equals? No - their servant! He must visit factories and feign interest in their goings-on. Though he despises others’ children he must plant kisses on infant foreheads. He must attend local eateries, munch bad food and battle bellyaches while shaking countless hands and jabbering with idiots. Invariably, a man takes him by the ear and will not let go. He babbles about his family, his job, his bowling trophy. All the while he longs to be loafing on his sofa in his underwear, looking at the television.
The sufferings he must endure in pursuit of power! Enduring his terrific breakfast, he is tortured further by the realization that he must repeat the act at lunch in Columbus and dinner in Wilkes-Barre. Then there is tomorrow in Ocala, Macon and Raleigh. It is dreadful business.
The Price to Pay for Power: In his private moments, in the silent watches of the night, he wonders if it is all worth it. He decides - begrudgingly - that it is. Such is his lust for office. It simply overwhelms and envelops him. He assures himself it will all be a distant memory once he is secure in office. He will then be free to renege on all the promises he had made to those half-wits and quarter-wits on the campaign trail...
“Don’t these people realize that they’re being used as political pawns? Do they think that eating pancakes with me and telling me about their mother is going to somehow influence me?” Let us assume our seeker of high office has pulled enough wool over enough eyes… and wins the election.
The Money Is Great: He is relieved that he can proceed straight to the business of governing. That is, to the business of picking pockets, trading horses, scratching backs, greasing palms, cracking skulls... and breaking promises. But his reprise is brief. In two years or four years or six years, he will seek reelection. And the entire process must begin anew. Only next time his cynicism has doubled - no, tripled. The political process has worn the very soul out of him.
Yet he is consoled and soothed by this one central fact: He has grown extremely wealthy being a humble servant of the American people. As we indict this morally bankrupt fellow, we must nonetheless turn and face a mirror. “Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre. We must conclude that we deserve the scoundrel above described - and others like him. The admission brings pain, yet truth often does.
Perhaps the time has come to abandon the ramparts, lay down the muskets… and twiddle the thumbs…To reclaim our power, perhaps it is time for inaction."
"I’ve dealt with many American presidents. They come into office with ideas, but then men in dark suits and briefcases, wearing blue ties, show up and explain to them the world the way that it will be. And so you never hear of those ideas again."
- Vladimir Putin
Youghal, Ireland - "New York city was rocked awake this week as the future knocked on America’s door. A man Donald Trump described as a ‘communist lunatic’ won the Democratic primary; most likely, he will soon be sitting in Rudolph Giuliani’s chair in the mayor’s office.
The mainstream press didn’t know what to make of it. It was a victory for muslims, says the New York Times: "Zohran Mamdani’s stunning performance in the Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday amounted to a watershed moment for Muslim New Yorkers, who could see one of their own lead City Hall for the first time should he succeed in the general election in November."
New York City is home to roughly one million Muslims; they made up 12 percent of the electorate in the 2021 mayoral election. Mr. Mamdani wove his faith into his campaign from its earliest days, hitting the trail while fasting for Ramadan and taking his message of affordability to mosques and Muslim community centers throughout the city.
The Democratic leadership saw the victory in terms of ‘energy, style, and vibes.’ Tommy Victor on Pod Save America said it had an ‘Obama in 2007 feel...nimble and fun.’ Others think the Democratic Party leaders themselves are the real problem. Solis Doyle, who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid for president: “Right now we’re leaderless, we’re messageless, we’re agendaless, we don’t have any alternative ideas to the president and the Republicans right now. So, you know, I’m concerned, to say the least,”
And here is where it gets interesting. Sasha Stone: ‘Democrats’ biggest problem is that all they have to sell for ten years is their war on Trump. In Zohran, the young have found someone they believe in. He will sell them exactly what they didn’t even know they wanted, but now they want it really bad. He’s the Music Man.’
The billionaires backed Andrew Cuomo, the safe choice, who promised ‘more of the same.’ The New York Times: "With $25 Million, Pro-Cuomo Super PAC Shatters Outside Spending Records."
But what did the voters want ‘really bad?’ Free stuff! Yes, it’s back to basics for the ‘liberals.’ Gone is the divisive claptrap - the dumbbell pronouns, DEI, the trannies and weirdos...even Black Lives don’t matter anymore. The winning formula was on clear display in New York. Democrats are now promising free transportation, rent controls, free university. Free childcare. And more.
And now, Naked Capitalism: "All the stupid money on Earth can’t save the nihilistic neoliberals from the likes of Mamdani..." From our big picture perspective, this should be no surprise. As an Empire dies, the two factions - left and right - fight ever more fiercely over the rotting corpse. People still vote. But the center gives way.
Gone is the ‘consensual democracy’ and civility of the Eisenhower era. Trump won’t be with us forever. He will be followed by hack Republicans - perhaps by Trump Jr. They will have to get tough to defend policies that haven’t worked. And they will be up against more Mamdanis - candidates with actual ideas and programs, albeit terrible ones. As on the streets of Berlin in the 1930s, it will be a brawl between brown shirts and black shirts...two strains of the same disease.
It used to be that the democrats were the party of Big, Ambitious Government (BAG). They were opposed by the old Republicans, who generally favored smaller, more conservative government. Like Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill, they disagreed on policy issues...but compromised, and then went and played golf together.
But now, Republicans have turned into fawning, Big Man bootlickers...and the old, whiney Democratic centralists are turning into communist lunatics. And the more they seem to move apart, the closer they become, one to another. Both ruthless. Both witless.
Rich New Yorkers are said to be looking at real estate in Florida. They might want to consider going further afield. Unwittingly or not, both parties still dance to tunes called by the Deep States’ ‘men in blue suits.’ More spending, more debt, more war, more chaos and more police - both still tap their toes to the rhythms of Empire History."
"Betting against Donald Trump is usually a bad idea."
- Insurrection Barbie on "X"
"What apparently riles the credentialed political Left - the “gay/race communists” in the apt new phrase - more than anything, is that most of the country has opted to not be insane. This follows a decade-long attempt to drive the country insane, of course, to believe in things that are patently untrue and absurd, and to utilize falsehood and absurdity to garishly destroy the nation.
So, it fits that Donald Trump, the uber-realist of political game-playing, pushes what remains of the Democratic Party into a rapture of impotent rage. They’ve got nothing left but the empty acting-out of lunatics in an asylum of their own making. The wrathful grass-widows choking on their chardonnay in Martha’s Vineyard, the furious nose-rings steaming under their keffiyehs in the summer heat, the “Transtifas” storming police lines with their ridiculous umbrellas, the doddering Boomer-hippies reenacting the festive protest marches of 1968, minus a single coherent principle, the wigged-out congresspersons storming the ICE detention centers, the Covid vaccine victims duped into multiple organ failure (their hearts and brains especially), the “allies” of every loser group from Bangor to Brentwood in a frenzy of baffled grievance - these poor, lost wretches so far gone that even the likes of David Axelrod, James Carville, and Frank Luntz can’t stand to be associated with them anymore, is all the Democrats have left in their manure-stuffed donkey stable.
The abiding mystery remains: what exactly set in motion this fantastic cascade of political madness, especially among the highly educated demographic. The seemingly obvious answer is higher education itself, infested since the 1960s with Marxist zealots, sexual malcontents, and resentment-filled diversity hires. And while that has surely played its part, it doesn’t sufficiently explain the ugly dynamic.
Another explanation runs toward a plot by international “oligarchical” corruptniks to corner all the goodies of the world and either turn the rest of us into their slaves, or just kill us off - and to do it in such a way as to rub it in our faces, so as to provide the corruptniks with some mirthful entertainment as they go about their dastardly business. For instance, the recent weekend wedding of Huma Abedin and Alex Soros on the very day that the moiling minions whom they sponsor held their nationwide “No Kings” rallies inn the streets.
Huma, the bride, you recall, was Hillary Clinton’s sidekick back in Hillary’s glory days, especially the time of her glorious and inevitable rise (her regal “turn”) to occupy the White House, thwarted inconceivably by the preposterous showman, Mr. Trump. Hillary, you also might recall, left the White House broke-ass-broke in 2001 only to agglomerate a stupendous multi-hundred-million-dollar fortune working as a US Senator and then Secretary of State (salaries $170,000 and $260,600 respectively). That is, Hillary acquired her great fortune in about the same way that the royalty-of-old acquired theirs - by grift and theft.
And Huma, former wife of disgraced congressman and convicted Internet pervert Anthony Weiner, is now wed to decade-younger financial royalist Alex Soros, son of George, who made the bulk of his fortune (estimated $7.2-billion) shorting the British pound sterling in 1992 and went on to found a vast array of NGOs and so-called philanthropies (the Open Society Foundations) that specialize in influencing elections worldwide, conducting regime-change campaigns, and lately financing seditious movements within the United States. Heir-apparent Alex is reported to have taken over the day-to-day operations of that network - but, we must have no kings, you understand.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has actually tried, against all odds and endless threats, to represent the interests of common US citizens, that is, most of us, the non-royal, and to navigate the collective consciousness of this human mass away from the long-creeping, imposed insanity. He was blind-sided and sandbagged by enemies in his naïve first term. But Trump has returned - after an astonishing exhibition of spiteful incompetence by his adversaries - much-chastened by previous failure and injury with a far-better crew, much better-prepared with a program for redeeming a spavined economy, reinstating common sense in the daily life of the nation (i.e., resistance to absurd propositions), and reform of a dangerous rogue bureaucracy.
The remnant Left is reeling now, most recently from last week’s SCOTUS decision foreclosing the universal injunction nonsense sponsored by Norm Eisen and Mary McCord’s lawfare corps. That campaign, which raged for five months, might prove to be their last gasp. You know, though, that they are plotting another round of election fraud for the 2026 midterms. But it looks like their previous frauds are on the verge of being uncovered - finally, after years of evasion and no help from a treasonous news media - and there’s a fair chance that they can’t pull off more fraud next time. Passage of a proof-of-citizenship law for national elections could seal that deal.
But first, the massive hurdle of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Whatever its virtues and defects, it must be gotten over for this larger effort of a journey back to civilizational sanity to continue. Hazards lurk at every turn. The awesome national debt hangs ominously over the whole enterprise and might sink it yet. Certain players in Europe steer deeper into their own insanity and look more and more like true enemies of the USA - far more than Russia does now - and then there is China: powerful, still rising, plotting cunningly. Plenty of travail awaits, but we’ll be better able to get through it with our minds right and our aim true. Aim to stay sane."
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI)is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding,safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
Alastair Crooke Predicts US-Iran War Before It Happens"
"Even before Israel fired the first shot on Iran, diplomat Alastair Crooke was warning that Israel's desperation would lead to a forever war in the region that will shape geopolitics forever. Watch this video to learn the context for the events that have unfolded in the last several weeks, you don't want to miss it."
"The truth is coming out about Israel's defeat to Iran and its only getting worse. Join Danny Haiphong, Mohammad Marandi, and Dr. Elham Kadkhodaee for a mega livestream on the fallout of the 12-day war and why US/Israeli threats are not scaring Iran."
“I looked on, I thought, I reflected, I admired, in a state
of stupefaction not altogether unmingled with fear!”
~ Jules Verne, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864)
Reykholt, Iceland - "When wandering Norse settlers landed on these frigid polar shores sometime in the second half of the 9th century, located on an active rift between tectonic plates and brimming with sulphuric geysers and volcanic eruptions, they must have thought they’d at least have the place to themself.
Imagine their surprise, then, when they encountered their first papar, a mysterious sect of Gaelic monks who had taken up eremitic residence on the frostbitten island, in what appears to have been an early and, until then, successful attempt at Medieval social distancing.
Whether despite, or because of, the land’s remoteness and extreme conditions, the Norsemen must have fancied the place; they spent the next few centuries cultivating the land here and transporting Gaelic serfs, known as “thralls,” to help them with the heavy lifting of early settlement. (Hence the idiom, to be in thrall, or under the control, of something or someone.)
According to the Landnámabók, the Icelandic “book of settlements,” it was a sturdy Norseman by the name of Ingólfr Arnarson who fist built his homestead here in 874, giving name to ReykjavÃk, the western province that would become the island’s capital.
Ingólfr Arnarson, the first settler of Iceland and newly arrived in ReykjavÃk,
directs his thralls to erect pillars for the island’s first permanent homestead.
Painting by Johan Peter Raadsig, 1806 - 1882.
On the Brink: What must life have been like, we wonder, for these intrepid frontiersmen? How did they survive in such extreme conditions, all without planes… petroleum… penicillin, etc. Turns out, many didn’t. Between early settlement and the mid-19th Century, the hard-scrapple population, numbering between just 40,000-60,000, was beset by bitterly cold winters, carpeted with poisonous ash fall from volcanic eruptions and, despite its remoteness, cut low by ravenous diseases and bubonic plagues.
When the Black Death visited the island at the beginning of the 15th Century, it wiped out between 50-60% of the population (church records suggest as little as 20% of the clergy survived…) It returned again toward the end of the century, presumably to finish the job. Then came the smallpox outbreaks, which killed a third of the population at the outset of the 18th Century… plus measles, influenza and livestock plagues. There were also frequent crop failures, and the resulting bouts of starvation. All told, Iceland experienced 37 famine years between 1500 and 1804… one every eight years.
And yet somehow, someway, by hook or by crook… the people pressed on, eking out what meagre living they could, braving the merciless conditions, and each other, to soldier on through the seasons and the centuries.
From 930 through to this very moment, the island has been governed as an independent commonwealth, albeit one that has found itself under the control of Norway, Sweden and Denmark over the years. Its governing body, the Althing, remains the oldest surviving parliament in the world.
The economy, a mixed market capitalist system with private enterprise and free trade and at its core, thrives. As of last year, Iceland boasted the eighth-highest Gross Domestic Product per capita in the world (US$78,837). Today, 390,000 Icelanders enjoy a level of comfort and wealth Arnarson and his early arrivals could not have imagined.
They harness vast quantities of geothermal energy from the ground… grow fresh crops in glasshouses pumped full of carbon dioxide (a.k.a. plant food)… and charge wide-eyed tourists like your editor US$26 a bowl for gourmet, farm-to-table tomato soup, which they gladly and gratefully pay. (It did have king prawns and cognac, to be fair…) Staring down unimaginably tough odds, the best in mankind survives another day. In Man vs Nature, we’ve all but tamed even our severest surroundings."
“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”
"This is the ultimate question, the only question, asked here by the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon. It is a poem of exile, from the ancient familiar, from the sustaining myth of rootedness, of centrality. A poem that the naturalist can relate to, we pilgrims of infinite spaces, of the overarching blank pages on which we write our own stories, our own scriptures, having none of divine pedigree.
Yes, we feel the ache of exile, we who grew up with the sustaining myths of immortality only to see them stripped away by the needy hands of fact. We scribble our choral odes. Who listens? We speak to each other. Is that enough? Having left the home we grew up in, we make do with where we find ourselves, gathering to ourselves the glittering dust of the here and now. Are we truly alone? Mahon again:
"If so, we can start
To ignore the silence
Of infinite space
And concentrate instead
on the infinity
Under our very noses -
The cry at the heart
Of the artichoke,
The gaiety of atoms. "
Better to leave the blank page blank than fill it with sentimental hankerings for home, with those prayers of our childhood we repeated over and over until they became a hard, fast crust on the page. Incline our ear instead to the faint cry that issues from the world under our very noses, from there, the tomato plant on the window sill, the ink-dark crow that paces the grass beyond the panes, the clouds that heap on the horizon - the dizzy, ditzy dance of atoms and the glitterings of stars. "
"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come and Gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend... "
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