Dear I.,
You left the world a year ago—il y a un an—in French one uses your favorite existential clause for the passage of time, and I imagine you would have mused on that along with what you'd told me about Levinas and his writings about being.
I thought about you every now and then. I also thought about this Department of Eagles song:
And now that you're gone
I have nothing but time
To walk with your bags
Down to the docks
The world has changed a lot this year. “There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen” is how some people phrased it. I wonder how you would see all this.
Just when everyone was thinking about what’s wrong with the superconnected world, suddenly the physical has become a very dangerous place. The virtual, perhaps reviled by some not long ago, turns out to be a pillar of civilization and lifeline to billions. Our epistemological crisis, already an ever mutating strain of bits, is now paired with some ever mutating strains of atoms, just like how one would pair wine with cheese, with no dine-out option in the past few months.
The days go by, and we remain on this side of the world.
2020-05-18