Eduardo Stefani

Life is like a wink! We do not know where we came from or where we are going. In each epoch and culture, can be summed up in certain way. Take the vikings for instance, Valhala was the sacred place for them to walk to. Pride for them was to die holding a sword on a battle field. There was a great veneration for Odin and a supernatural fear regarding the dangers of the poisonous seas.

The Mays on the other hand, were much more advanced! They venerated many gods related to nature and unlike the barbarians, they acumulated a deep knowledge about architecture and mathematics, including the decimal and the value of zero.

Then lets analyse two civilization, the distinct way they lived. Each one with its own cultural values and convictions about life and religion.

Our mission now is to understand in short what life is nowdays and about what we are going to leave for the future generation to study about us. The challenge is to understand what we are doing on this globe, traveling thousands of kilometers per hour in space, on a colision course with something that we do not yet know and with everything moving under our feet. We live in the middle of intense activities on this rich planet which sometimes rebels and punishes us like a mother, shaking the gound and putting us in our place. There is a fear that our stay here will be only one more experience and in the end, one more lost civilization in the history books. However, if we have luck and capacity, we can break the cycle of comings and goings, their by keeping a civilization who meets now with a high intelectual level, however there are many moral and spirituals problem to be solved.

With a little analysis, we can see that we are one of numerous civilizations who have walked this planet. There are some huge clues, for instance that there were some civilizations with advanced technological levels, including nuclear weapons knowledge. For those who have doubts, there are Hindu writings named Mahabharata, which describes nuclear attackes in details, proving that we are not alone when we talk about weapons and possible they caused an annihilation, a risk we are also living with.

Sometimes I speculate if everything that is around us is like a tourist souvenir, closed, full of water, with a limited area and a controlled world. Also there is a possibility of everything being an exact reprodution of the allegory of the cave, by the illustrious Plato. The amazing thing is the suspicion that everything we have seen since we were born are shadows or maybe a limited space inside a souvernir, resting on a cupboard.

I think there is somebody watching us in the same way we watch a tourist souvenir, or we have something beyond shadows in order to feel the flavour and smell of life. But we might have some problems with our senses, limited by the environment, so maybe better to keep it in the realm of ideas.

Day to day life takes out all the flavour of the adventure which is to be here on this globe. Everybody knows to reach here is a challenge, possible only for a few people. Since our conception, we have lived in the middle of a lot of dificulties and we are here, carrying on our shoulders the weight of gravity. We have lived a lot of experiences and tribulations and even though we number in the billions, we are as fragile as ants, with a risk of being rubished with a celestial broom at any moment.

Another question, however more transcendental is if everything will be buried with us or if we will have the condition to use these experiences in other oportunities, in other words, in other existences, not necessarily on this Earth. Something like a big diary which will be consulted for us, each one with your own individuality.

The difference between human beings and other animals, is the capacity to question our destiny, as well as living the fact and looking from the inside. To take a look from outside is easier, but to be inside gives us a contaminated vision. The stars look at us in a way and we, here, look at ourselves in another way. Unfortunately we cannot talk to the stars, even if we could, we would talk to our past.

Everything we have lived gives us a brief taste. When it begins, it is near the end. For us here on this globe, everything costs a lot to go through, however, thinking in another way, it is a brief moment in time the measure of which we do not yet know.

This hole presentation has the objective to call apon us to reflect about everything that is around us and to do the best possible. To try to escape those day to day concerns which inprison us all, turning life into something a survivor course. Lets confess: Everybody has the feeling that it is not enough. Let us make good use of this brief flavor in time.

[], Eduardo Stefani – 24/06/2005