I think I am not alone when I say that there is something magical about a nighttime view over a big city. It is especially surreal if you come from a forest and a deep walk in the nature and suddenly you see the flickers of light. I usually sit still and watch the lights .how they move very slowly. It seems like they are so many and so little. But there is a massive accumulation of life behind those shiny urban stars.
I admit that I do not feel a particular joy about having to come back from nature into the city. But when the night comes and I can see from a high hill the city…I am in awe and bewildered because all of my life challenges seem so trivial and petty. And the image of those lights has something romantic in it. It is actually humbling to realize that I am a tiny speck in the vast swarm of human beings trying to live an extraordinary existence on this planet.
I remember so vividly my childhood years when I lived on the 5th floor and I was lucky enough to have a balcony. In the hot summer nights I would put a blanket and choose to sit there on my back and stare at the stars. I would hear the trains making that high pitched noise and watch the lights. Maybe then my awe for the cosmos and the humanity has started. I believe that it takes a bit of a dreamer to be able to realize that there is also beauty in chaos although it is unnatural to the human spirit.
Today I was listening to a recording of a fascinating book that is old. From 1906 and written by Elizabeth Towne, this book had a fragment that captured my attention. The human spirit will be beaten up and destroyed if one will sit for too many hours indoors. You would believe that a thinker from 1906 is obsolete and old fashioned but this makes so much sense in 2024. I strongly believe that our innate nature is not meant to sit in cubicles for hours and listen to the maddening honking in traffic only to get in a crowded supermarket to buy not so healthy food. And coming back to the concrete jungle and live an existence between four walls for so many hours from one’s life is soul destroying.
The flickering lights look magical to me because they are far away. I am admiring the spectacle from afar. From the silence of the woods. I understand why wealthy people yearn for solitude and choose remote locations for their houses. As much magic as a light show might evoke, living in the urban landscape is a stress factor. Isn’t it ironic how something that gives you the chills and the pain in heart can be beautiful if you keep a distance?
I try to envision a futuristic society where the town is a hub for commercial purposes only and industrial business and where people would have the opportunity to relocate in nature, to have their children touch the grass with their bare feets early in the morning, where the nicest noise would be the trill of the birds and blowing of the wind. I dream of this more than I dream of growing old in the urban jungle…
Leave a comment