On Saving the World

Where do you want to go today?

I want to go to east but the east of 100 years ago. Very little is there to remind you of the past, just some plaques imbedded in churches and other spots on the tourist map. Everything else is gone and I don’t know where it went. Are there still ghosts? Perhaps you need to go there some night when everyone is asleep and then wait while the wind howls to see if there’s a rising. But I expect that they’ve all gone elsewhere. No self-respecting ghost wanted to stay around if they could possible get out of that dreadful place. But once gone they look back nostalgically…

Nothing but the bold… nothing but the bolder…who is left to tell the tale? Who is there to pass the story on? For the story must be told or else all will die out with me. Everything will go if I don’t save it. So it’s up to me. It’s up to us. But will we be saying anything that is important or is it just our lives that we’re trying to save for the future - for eternity? If there is no eternity then it doesn’t matter, does it? That’s it in a nutshell. For where do gentle souls go? If you’re a gentle soul where do you move to? Gentle souls get eaten, don’t they? Poor gentle soul….

Ghosts, the past, saving history, saving stories, does the past live on inside us? Do we need the stories or are they just convenient fictions to paper over a senseless future?

24 March 2003