I cannot recommend to you this essay enough.

this was a dream I had

that I was hiking in the woods with my wife
and my two small children
they were toddling around
running through the woods
falling
laughing
discovering
waterfalls and bugs and
all the rotting riches
secreted beneath a boulder

and I was trying to capture
their joy
in a little black camera
slung heavy
around my neck

except the camera
kept coming apart
in my hands
the lens and faceplate
little springs and screws
pieces of stamped metal

falling into my hands

every time I tried to take a picture
I had to stop
coax the thing back together
holding this spring down with my thumb
twisting this screw back in with my fingernail
pushing this tab back into that slot
where it closed
not at all securely
with an unsatisfying and quiet
click

every time I tried to take a picture

so to keep it safe
I put the camera into a cardboard box
that had been rained on
I held it in my hands
the cardboard soft
and pulling apart
at the folds

somehow I remembered this dream
long enough
to write it down

being
is not the same
as knowing
that
you
are

In the bible stories of my youth I remember wondering what had the pagans done to deserve destruction, be it in the flood or at the hands of the Israelites coming out of Egypt to claim their promised land. One of the things that I was taught was that these pagan societies were wicked, wicked, wicked because they practiced infant sacrifice. They sacrificed their children to their gods that were made of bronze and stone.

I remember wondering how people could possibly sacrifice their children. What horrifying devotion it must be to love something so much that you would allow your young children to be killed in its service. This seemed utterly foreign to me.

Our age is marked by the widespread delusion that the distance between any geographical or figurative points a and b may be shortened appreciably by placing a computer between them.

It is the phlogiston of our day. It is what historians will mock us for, if we are so fortunate as to survive in a way that nurtures history.