Axiomatic Erosion is the reality of how all formal systems of knowledge, measurement, and understanding inevitably break down into a paradox at sufficient levels of observation.
This means that no formal systems may ever be absolutely defined.
They will always run into an “infinite wall”, or some form of incomplete expression.
At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom–the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow.
Moby Dick, the White Whale by Herman Melville
Did we awake from the stupor that can consume our lives — lost amidst bits & bytes, screens & feeds — and find ourselves, as G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “in a street full of splendid strangers?”
The idea is not that we will win in our own lifetimes and that’s the measure of us, but that we will die trying.”
Barbara Ehrenreich
Stopping puts some space in your long haul. Rest is a way of being. Pacing is recalibrated care. ~Pato Hebert
High above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the ship’s tossed deck.
“Ah, noble ship,” the angel seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling off – serenest azure is at hand.”
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Seven older gentlemen of various political persuasions gather in the courtyard under the squawking birds to politely discuss and examine, in regulated heartbeat, the current issues and events of the week.
They also like to talk about their high-school classmates, both living & dead, unknown to others outside of Los Gatos. It’s an exclusive club.
THAT for six thousand years
—and no one knows how many millions of ages before
—the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings
—that all this should be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter minutes past one o’clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. 1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapour
—this is surely a noteworthy thing.
–Moby Dick; or, The Whale (Chap. 85: The Fountain) by Herman Melville
Found this black & white treasure hanging on the fence in K’s driveway after our hike through the suburbs of San Jose to Dawson Loop. Click on the image to see M’s colorization.
Here’s a black & white line drawing for contrast:
