Greg Borzo's presentation last night, presented by the Edgewater Historical Society, was a delight. Greg is a reporter and historian. he has a few books out on Chicago, two on its history and one on biking in the city. One of his histories is on the cable cars of Chicago. Like most human beings, I had no idea Chicago ever had cable cars.
There is something incredible, and also overwhelming, when you think about how many events like this happen around the world at little museums and arts centers and community clubs. The sheer volume, the imponderable scale of history, as experienced by a single planet alone, is breathtaking. Literally. Oft-times I ponder the vastness of time, as peripherally experienced by the historical and object record, as deeply experienced in each personal reality, and my heart races, my breath grows short. The incredible expanse of time feels even greater than the soul-dwarfing expanse of space. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to wrap my mind around space and time and their quantum fabric. Holy mackerel, I am short of breath just writing about it. A mere 110 years have passed since the last cable car glided the streets of Chicago, yet they are essentially lost to the dust of history. If we could escape temporal linearity we could step off the curb in Chicago's loop onto a cable car passing by in the timesea, but we can no more escape linearity than we can escape physicality and step out our front door onto the surface of an exoplanet.
This awe, feeling subsumed within a greatness, a wholeness, a realness beyond the abilities of the mind, the physical sensation of feeling your brain pressing against the restraints of the skull, of the flesh, are what we hope to inspire just once, in just one child, one soul, with our projects, with Earthbound Moon, with RIME, with upcoming ESP and EbA programs, with our 100,000 year business plan, with our proposed educational curriculum.
Awe, laughter, curiosity, these experiences, if we can inspire or stimulate them in a handful of individuals, we will have accomplished small, yet powerful and meaningful, miracles. We will have changed lives for the better. We will have given a gifts to a stranger, we will have given of ourselves to others, the greatest possible reward I can imagine.
okay, actually, as a reward, being able to comprehend even a little bit more of the colossus of time and space would mayeb be a greater gift.
Maybe not.
I can't think too much about that.
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